Combining knowledge management

By TOM CLARKE

THE information and knowledge management sector in New Zealand is about to explode, says knowledge management integration specialist Terry Speegle of KPMG.

Mr Speegle is working with KPMG in Auckland as a principal consultant, to lead its management solutions integration effort. He is on secondment from KPMG in the United States.

He says that throughout New Zealand there are private and public sector organisations which hold enormous amounts of information, normally not in a logical format.

"In most cases, there are too many applications going after data in too many ways," he says.

"Centralising those systems is really the key, and I think there are going to be a lot of opportunities coming up in this sector."

Mr Speegle describes knowledge management solutions integration as putting together end-solutions for knowledge management, from strategy to getting the data out of the system.

Organisations have a lot of information stored in various formats, such as in databases, documents and reports sitting on shelves, and the knowledge held by staff which takes some work and time to obtain. Knowledge integration is taking a holistic approach towards that information and developing the systems that can put it into one logical place, and which can search and extract it in an appropriate form.

Mr Speegle says local government is one sector where this integration can be put to good use.

"Currently, if a ratepayer fronts up to a local council and asks for information about their property, that information would probably have to be accessed from files off a shelf, perhaps from microfilm, probably from a limited database, and probably also from the personal knowledge of staff," he says.

"There are already products available that will help pull all that information together, but it remains a real challenge.

Knowledge management solutions integration works through the whole life cycle of that system, designing a data model to fit all that logical information together, then actually building the system and employing it.

"The benefit of that is to provide the customer, be it a ratepayer or a commercial customer, with a quick and complete response to their inquiry."

Mr Speegle and KPMG have already developed one such system for a New Zealand local authority, which is undergoing acceptance testing on its intranet.

When that is completed, the system will go live on the internet where it will be able to be accessed by lawyers and other professionals.

It includes a document management system which involves the electronic storage of information, in this case entailing some 15 million pages of information.

Mr Speegle worked for KPMG in the US for more than six years, where he was involved in knowledge management solutions integration for a number of organisations including the US Army and Airforce Exchange Service (PX stores), several petrochemical companies and for a major retirement fund.

He holds a BSc from West Point with a double major in Middle East studies and systems engineering, and also has an MBA.