The Multiple Benefits of a Smart, Formalized Knowledge Management System

The complexities of supply chain and logistics management spring from myriad sources, many of which are recurring and relatively predictable; it’s mostly the way that multiple factors and elements interact with each other that causes trouble.

This is why, over the past few years, there’s been an increasing emphasis on capturing and organizing the pockets — large and small — of expertise, experience and know-how that reside in the minds of a broad array of workers within an organization. In other words, knowledge management. 

“In my mind, knowledge management sits at the intersection of people, process, company culture, content and technology. All of those are very important, especially in supply chain and logistics, because it’s a rapidly moving business,” says Ben Little, CEO of Bloomfire, a knowledge management software company. “They don’t have the luxury of being pensive and pausing to think. They have to get a truckload of lettuce out the door. They figure out how to do things on the fly.”

A warehouse manager, say, who falls sick, or leaves, or just goes on vacation, often thereby removes critical knowledge from the organi…