COST

EFFECTIVE

COSTS
ASSOCIATED
WITH
KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
SOLUTION FOR
DISASTER
MANAGEMENT

SOLUTION
TO
DISASTER
RESPONSE
The paper discusses
certain areas that are
taken into account to
ascertain the lifecycle
cost of the knowledge
based disaster
response system. The
paper aims to
incorporate cost
effective measures for
easy maintenance of
the system. The paper
also discusses certain
risks associated with a
knowledge based
project and discusses
methods to reduce it.

Ankit Verma

ankitverma.master@gmail.com

Introduction
Knowledge management is understood as assimilation and processing of information in
formats that are directly useful in decision making. Different methods have being devised to
codify knowledge in different environments but the process still remains human intrinsic in
critical areas of processing of information. If we study the cost factors associated with
knowledge management, processing of knowledge is intellectually intrinsic and cost associated
with processing is mostly in terms of manpower and intellectual assets needs for the purpose.
More the processing needed to convert data into information, more the cost. This poses a
challenge in designing of a knowledge based system of how to keep the overall lifecycle costs
to minimum. There can be number of possible workarounds to above mentioned challenges.
Possibilities like collection of specific data to address specific needs or to tag the data with
attributed as soon as it is assimilated. The framework that tags the data and funnels it into the
database is one time intellectual capital intrinsic but greatly reduces the information processing
costs. A model that partially processes the data at the time of assimilation would greatly
reduce the cost of processing it later. This document identifies number of costs associated with
knowledge management and proposes certain methods to identify, develop and introduce cost
effective knowledge management tools for disaster management.

EVENT

DATA

INFORMATION

Identification
Measurement
Expression

ACTION

PERFORMANCE

Decision -Making
Transformation
Processing
Value-adding

Measurement
Evaluation

The Flow Diagram Event to Performance

Cost factors associated with different stages of KM

While discussing the costs associated with a knowledge management system, there are
generally two types of costs associated with it, time and money. We are stressing on
addressing costs in two forms is because it is often tedious to monetarily valuate the value of
time. The cost of delay, faulty assumption, intellectual capital, etc. are relatively difficult to
ascertain and heavily based on assumptions. These are the two most crucial costs associated
with any system so for our discussion we shall use the term cost to address both these type of
costs. There are five major categories of costs associated with KM systems. They are as
follows

Cost of infrastructure
Cost of user acceptance and training
Cost of data collection
Cost of data processing
Costs associated with constant upgrading of systems

Cost of Infrastructure
This is the cost associated with the development of physical system to support KM based
decision making. It generally consists of the communication networks, servers, location
requirements, security of the system, and other physical requirements for the system. To keep
these costs to minimum one should focus on ease of availability, reliability and maintainability
of the system. Shying away from very specialized equipments help in saving on maintenance
costs in the lifecycle of the equipment.
Cost associated with user acceptance and training
These are the costs associated with making the system familiar to its users and providing them
with training to access the system. When a radical idea is built upon to serve needs there is
always a high risk of failure involved due to lack of user acceptance. To mitigate such a risk we
should always focus on what is that our intended user base is already using and designing the
system that is very similar to systems they are already familiar with. This requires certain
degree of familiarity of the users and the kind of systems they already use. Certain amount of
innovative out of box thinking often helps in reaching an amicable solution. In todays
environment if a certain community is well versed with Wikipedia then design the system that
draws parity with Wikipedia. If the intended users are facebook user community then design
the system to resemble facebook. Such thinking at the level of conceptualization of the system
proves to be critical at the time of user acceptance and reduces the need for specialized
training to use the system. Ultimate aim of the system is to be most accessible and easy to
use. There might be certain inefficiencies in the system initially but the most critical factor is its
reach to the intended community. We have seen case after case when different solutions failed

to reach intended amount of circulation only because of resistance to acceptance from user
base. So this is the most crucial aspect when identifying and designing a knowledge
management system.
Cost of data collection
Data collection is the area that requires extreme caution as the entire system depends upon
authenticity of data. It is a time consuming process which often requires migration from one
mode of data collection to another while maintaining authenticity. In addition to above, the
amount of time it takes for data to be generated and reflect in the system is also very critical.
For system to function in a concurrent environment focus should be on real time data collection
automatically fed into database. One should identify methods of fast collection of data and their
assimilation without any human intervention. Internet, phones, mobiles, sms services, etc. are
the mode of choice for real time data collection. Also another aspect that needs attention is to
collect data just-in-time to have the most recent data available for decision making. The
system would need previous data as well to help analyze historical decisions and their
efficiency. This helps improving system performance but emphasis should always be on faster,
leaner methods of real time data collection.
Cost of data processing
This is another critical area that consumers a large amount of intellectual capital and other
costs. When it comes to knowledge management, a human is often required in the loop to
process information. To keep these costs to the lowest we should focus on modular method of
processing information. For example a certain input in required about relief operations in a
remote area, the modular method of processing would emphasize real time data collection
from predefined data sources as soon as the need for such an input is required. The process is
smartly developed that provides required information and automatically identifies most suitable
source of data. Such efforts in designing the system helps a great deal in reducing the cost of
processing with an added benefit of making the system smart. The focus is to achieve as much
automation in processing as possible and use of humans in the loop to remain focused on
analyzing system efficiency and improvements.
Cost associated with regular upgrading of system
To mitigate the cost of obsolesce the system needs to be regularly upgraded from time to time.
This requires lot of human efforts in analyzing the processes and increasing their efficiency. A
constantly evolving system has many advantages and the scope of project can be gradually
expanded to cover a wider range of responses.

Conclusion
Lifecycle cost of the system has to be taken into account at the time of designing the system
itself. From a knowledge management standpoint, the above five kinds of costs have to be
duly taken into account when designing the architecture of the system. Due consideration is to
be given to cost of user acceptance and training as it mitigates the risk of failure due to lack of
user acceptance or in other words rejection of idea due to resistance by the users. Also due to
human intrinsic nature work required in processing the data associated with natural disasters,
modular processes of processing must be incorporated in the designed system to have low
costs and improved services. A system that takes into account the usability and the costs
simultaneously would prove to be the best available solution fulfilling our specific needs.

Author
Ankit Verma
ankitverma.master@gmail.com

April 9th, 2013