Design of knowledge management system for biotechnology laboratory

Abstract

In post-Genome era, investments and concerns about biotechnology industry are increasing rapidly. University laboratories provide fundamental knowledge to the BT industry like other industries. But they have experienced some difficulties in creating and sharing research results, due to characteristics of BT laboratory such as, interdisciplinary research, newly developed experiment methods, frequently changing researchers, $\emph{etc}$. Knowledge management system (KMS) has been proven to be an effective tool for managing knowledge in various organizations. In this paper, KMS representing the characteristics of BT laboratory was designed by applying two-phased quality function deployment (QFD) method. To collect input information for QFD analysis, literature survey, survey and benchmarking were performed. From the first-phase QFD, basic functions of KMS for BT laboratory were determined. Specific modules of KMS were selected through the second-phase QFD. The results of QFD analysis were implemented to a BT laboratory of a Korean university and system architecture of KMS@BT Labs was developed.