Study On The Relationship Between KM Activities And NPD Performance In CoPS

Knowledge Management (KM) is developed very rapidly and deeply in recent years due to a great attention focused on KM by the people from both academies or corporations. However, many KM practices in corporations are failed, even though developed KM methods used. Many KM practice projects become information management project or even data management project during the practice.On the other hand, Complex Product System (CoPS) is becoming more and more important to a country's economy. Several problems encountered by the CoPS companies on the way of rapidly development. One key problem is poor development ability. This leads to weak of the CoPS companies' core competition capacity. The study on CoPS just begins from several years ago. Those mature theories in batch product environment can not be used in CoPS environment directly due to the special characters of CoPS.The core of CoPS's special characters is knowledge complexity. So it is more urgently to practice knowledge management in CoPS environment than other environment in order to improve performance and enhance the core capacity.This paper studies CoPS deeply and systemic from the view of knowledge management. An assumption module called "the relationship module between KM activities and NPD performance" is put forward on the basis of literature review and case study.Through a questionnaire survey, 217 effective samples of CoPS projects are collected and analyzed used statistical analysis. The main conclusions are presented as follows:(1) The core of CoPS's special characters is knowledge complexityThe knowledge is important in CoPS innovation. A CoPS product is a collection of various fields' knowledge. The innovation process of CoPS will integrate multi-field knowledge into CoPS product. The complex characters of CoPS weaken the capacity of KM activities, and further weaken the NPD performance.In CoPS, there are several kinds of culture in one CoPS project. So the opening culture in which KM activities can be enhanced is not easy to form.CoPS product shall be managed in way of project team. However, some characters of project team add the difficulty of KM. Many companies attend the management of CoPS project. These companies exist in different section, even different countries some time. This adds the difficulty of knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing, and knowledge creation. Usually there is strong IT capacity in CoPS project. This enhances the abilities of knowledge acquisition (especially, for explicit knowledge) and knowledge integration. And at the same time, a plat for effective communication among team members is built. It allows that knowledge can be shared quickly.(2) Key KM activities and key KM enablers in CoPSThere is mature theory on KM enablers in batch product environment. However, there is not relative study on KM enablers in CoPS environment. Firstly, this paper selects four main KM enablers in CoPS based on literature reviews and case study: team's organization ability, culture character, IT ability, and strategic management ability. Then through a questionnaire survey, and statistical analysis, this paper identifies two key KM enablers: team's organization ability, and IT ability. Another important result of statistical analysis is the strategic ability isn't main KM enablers in CoPS.Similarly, there is developed study on KM activities in batch product environment. But there is not relative study on KM activities in CoPS environment. This paper selects four main KM activities in CoPS based on literature reviews and case study: knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration, knowledge sharing, and knowledge creation. Through a questionnaire survey, and then statistical analysis, this paper identifies two key KM activities: knowledge creation, and knowledge integration.(3) Path relationship (module) between KM activities and NPD performance in CoPSThere are several affected paths to NPD performance: the first one is the directly effectby KM activities, strategic ability, and IT ability. The second path is the indirectly effect by team's organization ability, IT ability via KM activities.