can you please study the case and answer the question that follows.

CASE STUDY Fluor (United States) Alan Boeckmann, CEO of Fluor, met John Fluor is one of the world's leading engineer- McQuary, Vice President of Knowledge ing, procurement, construction and maintenance Management, at his offices. 'We have a major (EPCM) firms in a range of heavy industrial sec. challenge, John, and I need your help. Until tors: oil and gas, industrial and infrastructure, the end of 2008 most of our activities in South government, global services and power. Fluor America were focused in Puerto Rico through employs more than 40,000 employees in 25 Fluor Daniel Caribbean. At Board level, we have countries and had an annual turnover in excess now made a decision to expand across South of $22 billion in 2008 with profits of $721m. America and we have opened offices in Buenos Fluor's knowledge management journey started Aires in Brazil, Santiago in Chile, Lima in Peru, in 1997 when they became aware that much Caracas in Venezuela and Mexico City in Mexico. valuable knowledge was being lost at the end Our corporate knowledge and expertise is critical of projects. The nature of their work meant to our success in these countries. Please tell me that teams disbanded at the end of projects and where we are with our global knowledge manage reformed into new project teams. Lessons learnt ment activities and what we need to do to ensure on projects weren't necessarily passed on, with success across new markets in South America. new project teams making the same costly mis- Mr McQuary began by confirming that Fluor takes and dissemination of new approaches hav- had been winners of the 2008 Most Admired ing limited success. Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) awards. 'At Fluor, This problem is inherent in any large project- we take a true enterprise-wide approach to knowl- based organisation whether it be IT, shipping or edge management. This requires an expanded construction. Fluor was clear from the start that mindset for deploying and maintaining com- a community-based solution was required and munities beyond what is required when the KM that technology would be needed in some form approach is targeted to a segment of the com- to allow its large employee base to be connect- pany, is regional, or is not open to all employ- ed. They were interested in allowing employees ees. We have also adopted a broad definition of to access and share their collective knowledge, knowledge communities that includes the global which would result ultimately in benefits for network of people and a technology platform the customer. They built a Web-based knowl. providing integrated content, expertise, and dis- edge management platform called "Knowledge cussions. Every employee has access to every Online' as part of their solution. In essence, this community, a rigorous community deployment technology platform combined aspects of social process is followed, community performance networking with a document-management sys- measurement and auditing programs align com- tem that was constructed, owned and managed munities with strategic business direction, and by the company. The focus was on open knowl- knowledge sharing behaviors are integrated into edge-sharing across organisational, regional and all aspects of company operations. project boundaries. In 1999 Fluor started with Mr Boeckmann interrupted and said: "Take me two communities as a pilot. In 2000 the success slowly through what this means and how we can of the pilot communities led to 32 communities apply it to South America." with 4,000 members. Now there are 43 communi- ties with 26,000 members including almost all of Employee participation was difficult in the Fluor's professional staff (21,000). early days of Knowledge Online. Fluor decided Each community has its own homepage with against the "points-based incentive scheme used news stories, featured content and knowledge in other organisations. Instead, they engaged objects such as best practice guidelines, specifi- new employees to use the new platform from cations and tips and tricks. The emphasis is on day one and tried to show existing employ. material that other employees will find useful. ees through Global Communications that most The other aspect of the homepage is the commu- of the resources used in their everyday work nity dimension. Users are provided with contact could be found either as knowledge objects details for Community Leaders and Subject Matter or within one of the communities. The main Experts (SMEs). There is a section on community incentives came from recognition awards annu- mission and charter, community help and links ally from their KM success-story contest and to community discussion forums, a calendar of 'KM Pacesetter' award where employees were activities and a search function. Apart from tra- nominated by peers for epitomising exceptional ditional search functions sorting results for rel- knowledge-sharing behaviours. Over the past evance, Knowledge Online provides the user with ten years there has been a distinct shift from contributor profiles for each knowledge object or a management-driven KM directive towards a discussion list searched. The user can see the con- more employee-focused one. The emphasis is on tributor's past experience and projects and deter- mine whether to contact them directly. Another performing communities that can add corporate value to the organisation approach is for the user to start a discussion in To coordinate the KM system, John McQuary the community forum by posting to 'Asking a Question'. Apart from the content and context of adds: 'At Fluor there is a central KM team of the question, the user also provides the date by seven, but only two are assigned full-time to KM. which the response is needed. Those two maintain the technology platform for An example of the responsiveness of the Knowledge Online. The rest are part-time. Other team members focus on improving community Knowledge Online discussion forums can be shown by a process study conducted for a performance and communication. I myself split Kuwaiti client wanting a dehazing solution for my time between the KM programme and tech- diesel and gas oil to meet the Haze-2 specifica- nology strategies. Each community also has a tion at 77C. The client's initial judgement was knowledge-manager responsible for maintaining to use an electrostatic coalescer and salt-bed the content and people connections through the drier with a water-cooled chiller. The project online community. Like the community leaders team found the salt-bed drier manual as a knowl and central staff, KM responsibilities are either edge object on Knowledge Online and placed a part of the job description or fulfilled by vol. request for any design and operational experl- unteers. In total, there are 200+ people globally ence of electrostatic coalescers and salt-bed dri- providing explicit support for what looks like a ers. They received three responses in three days corporately managed system, from their Netherlands and Canadian offices Alan Boeckmann interjected and asked about with different design options and project refer- the nature of the 43 communities and how they ences to each. The underlying advice was to would operate with their recent South American pre-cool the diesel and oil to 60C which would expansion. Mr McQuary explained that all their avoid the need for a salt-bed drier. The project communities fall into functional or business team packaged this solution as the Dehazing categories. The functional communities repre- Facility Design and offered it to the client. The sent different aspects of the project such as pro- client was extremely pleased as the new solu- curement and project management Business tion saved them Elm in equipment costs and communities are linked to certain sectors of future operating costs. This process study using their work such as mining, oil and gas and life Knowledge Online led to new work for Fluor sciences. Mr Boeckmann laboured the point and with the same client. asked how their new employees would cope in these large online communities with over 1,000 edge management in an engineering organization', members when Spanish or Portuguese was their Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects - Stanford first language. He asked Mr McQuary to reflect University, Working Paper no. 40, 1-24. on whether there was any need for changes to 3 Ash, J. (2007) 'Connecting people', Inside Knowledge, Knowledge Online given their South American 10(9), 20-23 expansion and to arrange another meeting with Questions him with some concrete plans. He confirmed that he was impressed with the way knowledge 1 What changes to Knowledge Online should John management had engaged staff at all levels over McQuary recommend to Alan Boeckmann in light the past ten years and provided lasting value to of Fluor's rapid expansion in South America? the organisation 2 What are the shortcomings of Fluor's online communities and how could they be improved? References 3 How can Fluor get employees to share project 1 McQuary, J. (2009) 'Lessons from a decade of knowl- mistakes on knowledge Online for the benefit of edge management', KM Edge. other employees and the organisation? 2 Will, A. J. (2008) The institutionalization of knowl