Sharing of information, knowledge and experiences from the warranty phase A case study at a construction company

Abstract

Sharing of information, knowledge and experiences between projects in the construction industry is today a problem for many organisations and therefore it needs to be worked with in order for organisations to improve their projects. Faults and rework are also big problems in the construction industry, which could be improved by better management of information, knowledge and experiences. This study aims to determine how the sharing of information, knowledge and experiences could be improved in a project-based organisation from the late phase of a project to the early phase of a new project. Hence, the sharing process at a Swedish construction company was examined to see how the sharing of information, knowledge and experiences from the department that handles warranty issues to the department that designs the projects is done today and how it could be developed in the future. Through a qualitative research, a theoretical framework was formed and several employees at the Swedish construction company were interviewed in two interview sets, with the focus on how it works today and how future systems could look like. The empirical data showed that there today is a poor relationship between the Warranty and Design department at the company. Neither the information, knowledge nor experiences that the Warranty department has are utilised by the Design department. Several barriers were also identified to why the information, knowledge and experiences are not shared today in the company, where the lack of time, low prioritisation of sharing and the lack of structured systems were identified as the main ones. This indicated that the Case Company needs new systems for the sharing. The research resulted in three suggestions to the Case Company which we conclude should be implemented in the organisation in order for them to improve their sharing of information, knowledge and experiences.