HUMAN LEARNING - NATURAL DRIFT TO LOOSE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

HUMAN LEARNING - PROFESSOR CONCEDES CoP AS GOLD STANDARD IN EXECUTIVE DEVELOPMENT

 HUMAN LEARNING - 3,000 CoPS AT CATERPILLAR WORLDWIDE

MORE  IN  ARCHIVES...

RESEARCH NEWS NOTIFICATIONS...REGISTER

Entered 28/09/04

3,000 CoPs AT CATERPILLAR WORLDWIDE
Powers, V.(2004) Virtual Communities at Caterpillar Foster
Knowledge Sharing. Training & Development. 58:6 p.40-45

Can manufacturing benefit from good KM initiatives ? Yes...try Caterpillar, clocking up 3,000 Communities of Practices in 5 years to date for skill sharing and continuous improvement. Target a hot business objective then set up your own CoP ! Invite your suppliers and your retailers too if you want ! Independent return-on-analysis studies continue to show dramatic benefits to the company. Are you setting one up ?

MILESTONES....

Pre-existing sharing culture - '75 years of a genuine culture of sharing.'

1998, Engineers discover costly duplication of tactical and strategic solutions.

1999, Internet Discussion Forum called Knowledge Network, 12 virtual CoPs. Early topics - mostly on standards and regulations.

Early example : Bolted Joints and Fasteners CoP, isolated workers linked to each other. Small, focused, limited group worldwide... Proved very effective.

Knowledge entries onto central database, validated and approved by selected community manager, assuring quality knowledge bundles. Support documents also included.

2001, Caterpillar University, learning organisation mandate, symbolised :

Example, Training Group CoP- upto 400 people with learning duties could reply to a single question around learning in almost real time.

Non-technical workforce and external stakeholders could not operate original CoP interface. Redesigned interface to be user-friendly... doubled the growth rate of users !

Metrics evolved to 50 indicators : number of discussions, number of searches, number of users logged on, number of participants.

2002, 800 CoPs
Invited independent dealers to participate in the Knowledge Network.
Example, Butler Machinery, 450 employees, uses K Network to enhance staff skills on Caterpillar equipment...'share projects, emails, problem solving, leading edge ideas... Caterpillar-designed aptitude tests for dealers to make better selection choices of candidate mechanics.'

2003, 1,800 CoPs

2004, 3,000 CoPs, 40,000 registered members.
'Currently, 80 % of participants are highly satisfied.'

2004, 40 + External CoPs, 7,000 registered members and growing fast.

_______________

Success Factors of CoPs

1. Solid links to Strategy.

'These aren't just organized by areas of interest, but by areas of interest where they can improve and solve problems... Caterpillar would rather have small, targeted communities, and for their culture, it works very well.'

2. Ingrained Learning Culture.

'There never was any fear of sharing ideas.'

3. User-Friendly Tools

'A good tool... increases the velocity of that sharing in a worldwide organization.'

4. Core KM Support Group

'A group that coordinates and facilitates the activities in support of the business goals.'

__________________

Return-On-Investment Study

Independent consulting firm, Metrix-Global, to identify the qualified benefits and calculate business-cost ratio and ROI for each.

Focused on two established CoPs : Joints and Fasteners, Dealer Service Training.

Qualitative ROI : Productivity( up 40%), Cost (reduced 25 %), Speed (up 15%), Quality (up 4 %), Others (16%)

Tangible ROI :  200 % for internal CoPs; 700 % for external CoPs

'Caterpillar was obviously happy with how the results came out... a conservative estimate because we examined only the bulletin board (contribution)'

Conclusion

'Leaders' perceptions shifted to managing knowledge as a strategic asset witha bottom-line return. What started as a grassroots knowledge management program escalated into a vast, enterprise-wide solution involving more than half of Caterpillar's 70,000 employees.'

Next...

1  |  2