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COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION FOR DISASTER
MANAGEMENT
COST EFFECTIVE SOLUTION TO DISASTER RESPONSE The paper
discusses
certain areas that are
taken into account to
ascertain the lifecycle
cost of the knowledge
based disaster
response system. The
paper aims to
incorporate cost
effective measures for
easy maintenance of
the system. The paper
also discusses certain
risks associated with a
knowledge based
project and discusses
methods to reduce it.
Ankit Verma [email protected]
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1 Introduction
Knowledge management is understood as assimilation and
processing of information in formats that are directly useful in
decision making. Different methods have being devised to codify
knowledge in different environments but the process still remains
human intrinsic in critical areas of processing of information. If
we study the cost factors associated with knowledge management,
processing of knowledge is intellectually intrinsic and cost
associated with processing is mostly in terms of manpower and
intellectual assets needs for the purpose. More the processing
needed to convert data into information, more the cost. This poses
a challenge in designing of a knowledge based system of how to keep
the overall lifecycle costs to minimum. There can be number of
possible workarounds to above mentioned challenges. Possibilities
like collection of specific data to address specific needs or to
tag the data with attributed as soon as it is assimilated. The
framework that tags the data and funnels it into the database is
one time intellectual capital intrinsic but greatly reduces the
information processing costs. A model that partially processes the
data at the time of assimilation would greatly reduce the cost of
processing it later. This document identifies number of costs
associated with knowledge management and proposes certain methods
to identify, develop and introduce cost effective knowledge
management tools for disaster management.
The Flow Diagram Event to Performance
DATA INFORMATION EVENT
ACTION PERFORMANCE
Identification Measurement Expression
Transformation Processing Value-adding
Decision -Making
Measurement Evaluation
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2 Cost factors associated with different stages of KM
While discussing the costs associated with a knowledge
management system, there are generally two types of costs
associated with it, time and money. We are stressing on addressing
costs in two forms is because it is often tedious to monetarily
valuate the value of time. The cost of delay, faulty assumption,
intellectual capital, etc. are relatively difficult to ascertain
and heavily based on assumptions. These are the two most crucial
costs associated with any system so for our discussion we shall use
the term cost to address both these type of costs. There are five
major categories of costs associated with KM systems. They are as
follows -
Cost of infrastructure Cost of user acceptance and training Cost
of data collection Cost of data processing Costs associated with
constant upgrading of systems
Cost of Infrastructure
This is the cost associated with the development of physical
system to support KM based decision making. It generally consists
of the communication networks, servers, location requirements,
security of the system, and other physical requirements for the
system. To keep these costs to minimum one should focus on ease of
availability, reliability and maintainability of the system. Shying
away from very specialized equipments help in saving on maintenance
costs in the lifecycle of the equipment.
Cost associated with user acceptance and training
These are the costs associated with making the system familiar
to its users and providing them with training to access the system.
When a radical idea is built upon to serve needs there is always a
high risk of failure involved due to lack of user acceptance. To
mitigate such a risk we should always focus on what is that our
intended user base is already using and designing the system that
is very similar to systems they are already familiar with. This
requires certain degree of familiarity of the users and the kind of
systems they already use. Certain amount of innovative out of box
thinking often helps in reaching an amicable solution. In todays
environment if a certain community is well versed with Wikipedia
then design the system that draws parity with Wikipedia. If the
intended users are facebook user community then design the system
to resemble facebook. Such thinking at the level of
conceptualization of the system proves to be critical at the time
of user acceptance and reduces the need for specialized training to
use the system. Ultimate aim of the system is to be most accessible
and easy to use. There might be certain inefficiencies in the
system initially but the most critical factor is its reach to the
intended community. We have seen case after case when different
solutions failed
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3 to reach intended amount of circulation only because of
resistance to acceptance from user base. So this is the most
crucial aspect when identifying and designing a knowledge
management system.
Cost of data collection
Data collection is the area that requires extreme caution as the
entire system depends upon authenticity of data. It is a time
consuming process which often requires migration from one mode of
data collection to another while maintaining authenticity. In
addition to above, the amount of time it takes for data to be
generated and reflect in the system is also very critical. For
system to function in a concurrent environment focus should be on
real time data collection automatically fed into database. One
should identify methods of fast collection of data and their
assimilation without any human intervention. Internet, phones,
mobiles, sms services, etc. are the mode of choice for real time
data collection. Also another aspect that needs attention is to
collect data just-in-time to have the most recent data available
for decision making. The system would need previous data as well to
help analyze historical decisions and their efficiency. This helps
improving system performance but emphasis should always be on
faster, leaner methods of real time data collection.
Cost of data processing
This is another critical area that consumers a large amount of
intellectual capital and other costs. When it comes to knowledge
management, a human is often required in the loop to process
information. To keep these costs to the lowest we should focus on
modular method of processing information. For example a certain
input in required about relief operations in a remote area, the
modular method of processing would emphasize real time data
collection from predefined data sources as soon as the need for
such an input is required. The process is smartly developed that
provides required information and automatically identifies most
suitable source of data. Such efforts in designing the system helps
a great deal in reducing the cost of processing with an added
benefit of making the system smart. The focus is to achieve as much
automation in processing as possible and use of humans in the loop
to remain focused on analyzing system efficiency and
improvements.
Cost associated with regular upgrading of system
To mitigate the cost of obsolesce the system needs to be
regularly upgraded from time to time. This requires lot of human
efforts in analyzing the processes and increasing their efficiency.
A constantly evolving system has many advantages and the scope of
project can be gradually expanded to cover a wider range of
responses.
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4 Conclusion
Lifecycle cost of the system has to be taken into account at the
time of designing the system itself. From a knowledge management
standpoint, the above five kinds of costs have to be duly taken
into account when designing the architecture of the system. Due
consideration is to be given to cost of user acceptance and
training as it mitigates the risk of failure due to lack of user
acceptance or in other words rejection of idea due to resistance by
the users. Also due to human intrinsic nature work required in
processing the data associated with natural disasters, modular
processes of processing must be incorporated in the designed system
to have low costs and improved services. A system that takes into
account the usability and the costs simultaneously would prove to
be the best available solution fulfilling our specific needs.
Author
Ankit Verma
[email protected]
April 9th, 2013
