Intel Learns to Share the (Knowledge) Wealth
by Matt Hines, News Writer

In a company as large and far-flung as Intel Corp., a lot of valuable expertise gets lost because it's simply too difficult to track down or share quickly. To stem this virtual brain drain, the chip maker launched a knowledge management (KM) effort aimed at improving employee collaboration.

According to Paul Calame, director of information and knowledge management at Intel Corp., the purpose of this undertaking is to build multiple repositories of useful information to help solve problems faster. To achieve its goals, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based manufacturer turned to software maker AskMe Corp. and its AskMe Enterprise knowledge management package.

"What this project is really about is people, and how people transmit useful information to help build skills," said Calame. "It's also a battle of how to capture useful data without creating new work for people who own useful information."

Calame said an example of Intel's struggle to better share information is evidenced in its globally dispersed engineering teams. Intel often has employees in different parts of the country, or the world, working on the same problems or creating similar products. After one group has invented a new design technique, it sometimes takes significant amounts of time for the process to spread to counterparts in different locations. The KM project aims to transfer these types of breakthroughs faster.

"We want to take case studies and problem-solving strategy, and blend them into a utility that anyone can access easily," he said.

Another area where KM is lending a hand in saving time and money is in the design and building of Intel's space-age fabrication plants. According to Calame, the ability to make changes on the fly and rapidly alter construction plans to address new innovations is a major advantage for the chip maker.

About a year ago, Intel selected AskMe of Bellevue, Wash., to help build its "centralized virtual repository" of expertise. After evaluating four different KM vendors, Intel selected AskMe's software based on its ability to effectively capture valuable data and because its products integrated well with those from Microsoft Corp.

The AskMe Enterprise platform uses a Web interface that lets Intel employees submit problems and receive answers or advice from qualified subject-matter experts designated throughout the company. The results of each query are then automatically captured in a searchable database so that future users can gain access to issues that have previously been addressed.

"Knowledge management works particularly well for Intel because it is such a process-driven company," said AskMe CEO Udai Shekawat. "They already had teams of very disciplined people focused on building useful expertise."

Shekawat said his company has already attracted a group of big-name customers, including Boeing, J.P. Morgan and Proctor & Gamble.

According to Calame, Intel was forced to bring on additional technology to help capture unstructured data from documents such as e-mail, but overall the company is pleased with its AskMe deployment. While Intel declined to say how much it spent on the project, AskMe said that a typical implementation for about 1,000 users costs roughly $500,000, with a per-seat licensing fee of $300. Intel plans to expand its project to nearly 5,000 users this year.

Calame said it is hard to measure return on investment for the KM undertaking, because the main benefit is in saving employees time, but he estimated that Intel received payback on the system in less than nine months.

"This is something we expect to grow organically and which should only become more valuable as time and expertise are put into it," he said. "It's tough to change the way people work, but when you can show them real benefits, they're going to come onboard."