ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING FOR SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES

An organisation is more successful if its employees learn quicker, implement and commercialise knowledge faster than the competition's workers. An organisation that is unable to continuously develop, share, mobilise, cultivate, put into practice, review, and spread knowledge will not be able to compete effectively. That is why the ability of an organisation to improve existing skills and acquire new ones forms its most tenable competitive advantage. This article introduces a knowledge management quick scan to

measure this ability.

KNOWLEDGE is a function of information, culture, and skills:

<Knowledge> = f (<Information>, <Culture>, <Skills>)

The function <f> specifies the relationship between knowledge on the one side and information, culture, and skills on the other. In this context information comprises the meaning given to data or information obtained according to certain conventions; this is also known as explicit knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). On the one hand, culture is the total amount of standards, values, views, principles, and attitudes of people that underscore their behaviour and functioning. On the other hand, skills are related to the capability, ability, and personal experience of people; they relate to what people can do, know, and understand. The knowledge components culture and skills represent implicit knowledge, which depends on the individual and is stored in the minds of people. This concept is based on experience, is practical in nature, and finds its source, among other things, in associations, intuitions, and fantasies. Explicit knowledge, on the contrary, is not dependent on the individual, is theoretical in nature, and is specified as procedures, theories, equations, manuals, drawings, etc. This knowledge is mainly stored in management information and technical systems, and organisational routines. How can knowledge be transformed into new behaviour? Thus, how can people learn effectively so that they can function better? If knowledge is to lead to competent action, then learning should receive special attention, and the organizational culture and structure should stimulate and support this.

Knowledge ages rapidly and is liable to wear. Learning is a continuous personal transformation. It is a cumulative process of the continuous actualisation of your knowledge, in order to change your behaviour so you can function and act better. It is a permanent change in your knowledge and behaviour partly due to repeated experiences. The intention is improving the quality of your thinking and acting.

In view of the increasing shift from lifetime employment to lifetime employability, people must make sure that their knowledge is up-to-date. An organisation is more successful if its employees learn quicker, and implement and commercialise knowledge faster than the competition's workers. An organisation that does not learn continuously and is not able to continuously develop, share, mobilise, cultivate, put into practice, review, and spread knowledge will not be able to compete effectively. That is why the ability of an organisation to improve existing skills and acquire new ones forms its most tenable competitive advantage. It is, therefore, imperative to constantly know which knowledge is essential, where it is available in the organisation, which associate possesses this skill, how this knowledge can be adequately utilised, how it can be shared, how this provides added value, and how it can be maintained. The organisation's knowledge infrastructure must be organised so that effective team work, creativity, positive thinking, self confidence, and a good learning environment are stimulated by the use of computers, the Internet and intranet, design of a knowledge-bank, presence of a library, continuous training, organisation of brainstorm sessions, and review meetings.

The ability of an organisation to learn by experience depends on the employees' willingness to think about problems, about the opportunity presented to associates to identify and solve common problems together, the willingness to intervene preventively, and the existence of a working atmosphere where every employee feels responsible for the company's performance. In practice, organisations especially seem to learn if employees have a sense of direction through a collective ambition (mission and vision), and work with all their might to realise this ambition. Because of this, employees feel a strong common bond, which motivates them to learn together. Under these inspiring circumstances, they are also willing to share their knowledge with their colleagues and match their personal objectives with the ones of the organisation. Through this, learning organisations emerge in which learning is collective and based on a personal and collective ambition.

Learning organisations have the ability to learn and facilitate all facets of the learning process and thus continuously transform themselves. Such organisations consist of teams with balanced learning styles, and people whose personal ambition corresponds to that of the organisation. Because of this, they have a positive attitude towards improving, changing, and learning. Learning organisations also consist of people who constantly learn from their own mistakes, share knowledge and communicate openly with each other. These organisations have leaders who coach, help, inspire, motivate, stimulate, and intuitively make decisions, and have processes that are constantly reviewed based on performance measures and feedback.

The management of the knowledge stream within the organisation is essential for this, as well as changing the way we think and deal with each other. According to Peter Senge (1990), people must give up their traditional way of thinking, have to develop their own skills and be open to change, understand how the whole organisation functions, and formulate the shared vision of the organisation together to try to fulfill this ambitious dream as a team. These basic elements of learning organisations are also based on people's experiences. In practice it shows that the tempo with which the abilities of an organisation increase are to a greater degree determined by the efficiency with which one learns from experiences. In order to obtain an optimum learning effect, people should have a certain educational level and specifically get the chance to acquire experience; this is because people with experience learn faster. Therefore, it is important to accept that every employee is able to learn and is motivated to do so, that learning is not a passive but active and continuous process and that associates need guidance in this process.

EFFECT OF SILICON

Sources

Silicon is found in almost all charge materials. Like carbon, there is very little in most steels, but it should be accounted for in charge calculations. It is also possible to buy pig iron with relatively low silicon; however, most pig irons, cast scrap and returns have higher silicon contents than steels. (It is sometimes possible to get a source of high silicon steel scrap. This can be an economical charge material.)

Silicon is also purchased as an addition. Care should be used when selecting the addition material. Inoculating grades of ferro-silicon should only be used when inoculation is desired. The aluminum and calcium in those grades can cause additional slag when introduced in induction furnaces

Effects and Comments

Silicon is like carbon in many respects. It has been long recognized as an important element, and, therefore, controls are typically adequate. While silicon control in a cupola can be difficult, in induction melting it is relatively easy.

Also like carbon, the higher the silicon the more likely larger graphite will occur as well as more ferrite in the matrix. This, of course, will generally be a weaker iron but with less likelihood of having carbides to degrade machinability. When silicon becomes very high it hardens the ferrite and can increase the hardness of the iron.

In ductile iron the impact transition temperature is affected by the silicon content. The impact transition temperature is the temperature at which ductile iron changes from being a

ductile material to a brittle material. With silicon contents around 2.40% the temperature is about -40o F. With silicon contents over 3% that temperature can be raised so high that castings will be brittle at room temperature.

Recovery of silicon alloys when added to a ladle is usually around 90%.

EFFECT OF CARBON

Sources

Carbon is present in almost all charge materials. While there is very little carbon in steel, there is enough that it must be taken into consideration when calculating a charge. Pig iron,purchased cast scrap, and returns all have considerably higher percentages of carbon than steel does. Carbon is also purchased for addition. The addition materials are called graphite or carbon raiser. Graphite is a crystalline material that when added to a ladle may have an inoculating effect. Carbon Raisers, on the other hand, are amorphous are not believed to have any inoculating effect Certain alloy additions can contain significant amounts of carbon and must be taken into consideration when calculating a charge. In particular, silicon carbide is usually considered a source of silicon, but it contains a significant amount of carbon.

Effects and Comments

Carbon has long been recognized as one of the most important elements in effecting the microstructure and strength of gray and ductile iron. This has led to great efforts in controlling it. It is a rare iron foundry that doesn't have some control of their carbon in order to minimize effects from changes. The quality of the control will vary from foundry to foundry. Those foundries that don’t have good control of their carbon can expect significant changes in their iron’s properties.

In general, carbon is the most potent of graphitizers. The more carbon in the iron the more graphite will be in the matrix. Also, the more carbon there is in the iron the greater the probability that the matrix will have ferrite in it. If that is the case, that also means that there will be less chance to have carbides.

Higher carbon irons are less likely to shrink and have better fluidity than lower carbon irons. In addition, higher carbon leads to less likelihood of producing massive carbides. If a foundry is producing thin castings it is likely that they will run a higher carbon than a foundry On the other hand, attempting to correct shrink with higher carbons can lead to other problems, especially in big castings. High carbons and slow cooling rates (thick castings) can lead to a condition called carbon flotation. Graphite typically forms first during solidification and is lighter than iron. If the solidification of the entire casting is slow enough, the graphite floats toward the surface of the casting. Recovery of carbon when added to ladles is usually less than 50%.