MODEL OF HANDLING BIG DATA AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY Horatiu Constantin Palade Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania extern at AUDI AG Horatiu.Palade@ulbsibiu.ro Sergiu Stefan Nicolaescu Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania Continental Automotive Systems S.R.L., Sibiu, Romania Sergiu.Nicolaescu@ulbsibiu.ro Claudiu Vasile Kifor Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania Claudiu.Kifor@ulbsibiu.ro Abstract: The amount of knowledge in the entire world and inside organizations already reached tremendous dimensions and is constantly increasing. In order to handle it, Big Data approaches and algorithms needs to be introduced. Without a strong management of knowledge and deployment of Big Data, the business cannot evolve in the current competitive environment and will slowly vanish. The paper is presenting the importance of Knowledge Management and Big Data inside automotive industry and is proposing a model of integration of this two emerging concepts. The vast amount of knowledge elements (data, information, knowledge, wisdom), referred as “generic awareness”, are gradually increasing and proving classical methods - like structuring - to become obsolete. As an original solution, the paper analyses the mapping of potential Big Data stages for automotive industry onto the DKIW pyramid. Based on the bibliographic research and observational study inside an automotive company, Big Data approaches are investigated and structured in order to find new ways that can prove valuable for the customer, business and innovation. Keywords: Big Data, knowledge management, automotive industry, DKIW, Generic awareness 731