Implementation of a Knowledge Management Tool within a Virtual Organization: the GPT Case Study. PAOLO TATICCHI §, FLAVIO TONELLI *, EDUARDO HERNANDEZ #, LUCA CAGNAZZO § § Department of Industrial Engineering University of Perugia, Via Duranti 17, Perugia, ITALY paolo.taticchi@unipg.it * Department of Production Engineering, Thermo-energetic and Mathematical Models University of Genoa, Via All’Opera Pia 15, Genoa, ITALY # School of Engineering, Design and Technology University of Bradford, Richmond Rd, Bradford, UK Abstract: - This paper presents a Knowledge Management (KM) software tool which has been designed to support managing implementation of best practices and improvement initiatives within a VDO (Virtual Development Office) Network. A VDO Network is an organization integrated by SMEs, with a particular form of governance. Furthermore, the KM tool enables building a knowledge base of key capabilities available to a VDO to support decision-making and responding effectively to new business opportunities. KM tool acts not only as a repository for knowledge pertaining to improvement initiatives, but it also drives SMEs to apply and share that knowledge within the wider VDO Enterprise Network. The availability of KM tools for SMEs is rare. This is more evident for Enterprise Networks. The KM tool can be easily modified to address better the requirements of the user (VDO) due to its flexible architecture. Key-Words: - Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, Virtual Development Office, SMEs 1 Introduction In the current competitive scenario, enterprises competitiveness is not based on company or industry, but on the value creating systems themselves, within which different agents work together to co-create value and build a network [1]. Researches in interconnected systems have contributed to characterize the benefits correlated to cooperation between companies [2,3,4]. These advantages could be particularly important for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) given the resource constraints and limitations they work within [5]. On the other hand, networking of enterprises entails new organizational problems, such as the decentralization of decision-making process and the horizontal coordination between different business functions [6] as well as the problem of knowledge management. The evidence in extensive literature and case studies [7,8,9,10] supports the belief that Knowledge Management (KM) can play a key role in managing businesses successfully and improving their performance. ICT-based Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) can be seen as enabling technologies to effectively support knowledge management aspects and related learning processes [11]. IT-based KM applications should be combined with soft KM approaches [12] to encourage individuals to think beyond their current boundaries. This will facilitate organizational activities, promote continuous knowledge creation and continuous improvement, and support growth through innovation [13,14]. Moreover, the need exists to develop a low-cost ICT-based KM solution to support manufacturing SMEs in order to help them to obtain the KM benefits available to large organizations. This can be done within the environment of a virtual Knowledge Sharing Network (KSN). This paper presents the implementation of an ICT- based KM tool to support the activities of a virtual network of SMEs in industries such as communications, packaging and logistics. 2 The VDO Concept The Virtual Development Office (VDO) model has been developed within the Italian research project MIGEN, during which the University of Perugia supported the development of an enterprise network from its first steps. The aim of the project was to define a conceptual organizational model for Proceedings of the 8th WSEAS Int. Conf. on ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING & DATA BASES (AIKED '09) ISSN: 1790-5109 89 ISBN: 978-960-474-051-2