4. The Challenge of Managing Knowledge in Construction Industry
As one of the major industries which operate in an information-rich environment, the construction
industry relies heavily on knowledge as one of the strategic resources to ensure the tasks associated with
the domain can be performed effectively and efficiently by the project team members (Egbu & Robinson,
2005). Thus, knowledge must be deliberately and consciously managed in a systematic manner to enable
organizations to achieve improved performance, avoid repetition of costly mistakes and reinvention of
wheels (Lin & Lin, 2006).
However, the process of managing knowledge in the construction industry is not an easy task and it
requires a thorough planning and preparation. Due to the intrinsic characteristic of the construction
industry that is highly fragmented and transient in nature, the success rate of managing project knowledge
has been somewhat minimal (Lin & Lin, 2006). Furthermore, taken into consideration the different stages
involve in the life cycle of a project starting from inception to decommissioning stage; the amount of
knowledge to be captured and managed can be overwhelming at times. Apart from the issue of knowledge
glut, part of the reasons for the difficulty in managing project knowledge is also caused by the fact that
most of the project knowledge such as technical procedures, project-related problems and solutions, best
practices and lesson learned often resides in the heads of project managers, engineers and other project
team members, in the form of tacit knowledge. Unless necessary steps are taken to better manage the
knowledge, the valuable project knowledge risks of being lost forever when the project team is disbanded
at the end of a project and team members move on their separate ways to new projects