The role of critical information in enterprise knowledge management

The role of quality of information in decision making has been highlighted in the literature. However, little attention has been given to the importance of critical information for the management of modern organisations. In order to provide products and services to customers, organisations need information for making decisions. Knowledge-based systems are emerging as appropriate technology to automate complex decision making and processes, in particular for managing enterprise operations. Critical information plays a key and essential role for managing modern organisations. Because of the large volumes of information and the resources required to process them, it has become necessary to develop a scheme for the identification of critical information. In this paper a new technique to identify critical information for use in knowledge processing is presented. Using an example from the manufacturing industry, it can be demonstrated that the use of critical information will result in more efficient management of the enterprise knowledge. This would ultimately increase the competitiveness and viability of the enterprise.