Abstract

This paper reports on a case study of the organizational memory information system (OMIS) of an engineering group at a nuclear power plant. It found that the OMIS was effective based on the criteria of the competing values model (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983). The engineering group was also considered effective based on the criteria used to evaluate effectiveness by the group managers. One of the criteria used to assess group effectiveness was the ability to use organizational memory. The study also found that more effective use of this OMIS was hampered by a lack of training and system integration. The scope of OMIS training was the main training issue. Management and the system designers assumed that engineers learned to ask questions and search databases while in college. This led to a training scope that only called for training on using system interfaces. This study found that the majority of OMIS users cited the inability to conduct searches and find information in addition to learning different interfaces as one of the main restraints to using the OMIS more effectively. A contributing cause to only providing interface training was cost. Interface training was found to be much less expensive than educating users in the concepts of information retrieval and database queries. Improving system integration through use of common interfaces and a single database is expected to improve OMIS effectiveness and to ease the training burden. Creating a uniform system interface reduces interface training needs. Using a single database reduces the scope of database knowledge that must be taught. It is proposed that the use of Intranets and a browser type interface as a platform for the OMIS will provide the architecture for improving system integration and reducing training needs

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