Develop a Knowledge Management System for TxDOT Pavement-Related Corporate Knowledge

Project Description

Over the years, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has experienced serious loss of expertise due to retirement of personnel. Often, along with the retirees, the agency loses vital corporate knowledge. This project sought to develop a system to capture and permanently retain corporate knowledge, specifically, corporate knowledge related to forensic pavement analysis. As forensic pavement analysis is a core function of departments of transportation, improving decision-making in this area can yield potential annual benefits in the millions of dollars.

TxDOT implemented a database system to manage its corporate knowledge internally. The research team used this system to create a knowledge management system (KMS) for pavement forensics information. In short, the team

• Developed the KMS approach to be used;
• Collected rigid pavement and flexible pavement forensics information from books, videos, technical papers, as well as from other existing sources;
• Interviewed forty-four highly experienced personnel to capture knowledge they gained from their years of experience; and
• Developed glossaries for both rigid pavement and flexible pavement forensic-related terms to enable the proper and consistent association of key words with the information stored in the database.

Besides developing and populating the KMS as described, perhaps the most valuable aspect of this project was the development of an interview process and method of making information from the interviews easily accessible throughout the department. Each interview transcription was used to develop relatively short legacy knowledge documents attributed to the individual providing knowledge. More than 200 legacy knowledge documents were developed and placed into the searchable KMS database. Since TxDOT's KMS is designed to be expanded, this process can be applied in numerous other areas of department operation, thereby protecting from unnecessary loss of corporate knowledge department-wide.

Project Publications

Development of a Rigid Pavement Forensics Knowledge Management System to Retain TxDOT Corporate Knowledge 0-4505-1

Develop a Knowledge Management System for TxDOT Pavement-Related Corporate Knowledge 0-4505-S

A Summary of Knowledge Management Information Gathered from Literature, Web Sites, and State Departments of Transportation 0-4505-P1

Core Knowledge: Developing a Knowledge Management System for the Texas Department of Transportation 0-4505-P8

Development of Content for a Flexible Pavement Forensics Knowledge Management System 0-4505-2

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