Working around the barriers to creating and sharing knowledge in capital goods projects : the client's perspective

The article considers knowledge management issues from the client's perspective. In the example presented, a sludge treatment centre procured by Northumbrian Water Ltd (NWL), the task faced by the client was to manage knowledge in a context where the core technology being procured was new and resulted in the need for new knowledge to be created and shared both pre- and post-delivery. In exploring these issues, the article reveals the problems of (and some solutions to) managing knowledge across the project life-cycle and between different groups, where the motivation for generating and sharing knowledge was not the same for all participants.