INTERVIEW SUMMARY SHEETPETER WALKER (DEWJOC)

Interview summary form

Interviewee:Peter Walker
Telephone:
Place:Dewjoc
Dean Street
Newcastle upon Tyne / Interview date:11 Jan 2006
Today’s date:23 Jan 2006
Written by:Paul W Chan
  1. What were the main issues or themes that struck you in this interview?

See emergent themes below.
  1. Summarise the information you got (or failed to get) on each of the target questions for this interview

Question / Information / Emergent theme?
Interviewee background / Architect of 20 years dealt mainly with design management.
Director of projects for the Conran Group (Barker and Stonehouse)
More concerned with the back end of the design and construction process (i.e. more the construction process)
Director of Newcastle office (one of three, which includes Teeside and London)
Also involved in academia; involved in the professional education for Architects at NewcastleUniversity and also participated in an EPSRC project on knowledge management (CAPRIKON).
Involved in visiting lectures and external examination and personally pursuing a PhD. / Senior management
Interest in linking with academia
Nature of the Business / The business is 103 years old and the Newcastle office employs around 80 people, with a turnover of around £3.5 to £4 million.
One of the company’s key specialisms is the design of clean rooms for the pharmaceutical industry (Glaxo, Pfizer). Involves more process-engineering as opposed to purely design-led.
Explanation of process approach: architects traditionally thought good enough brief was good enough. Often clients take an existing plant to say how they want to perform their operations. The challenge is for the designer to learn about their operations, usually by watching and through reading briefing documents, and empowering the client to challenge the status quo. This is where the designer transcends beyond just design-led professionals to become process-led.
There could be said to be two distinct cultures within the company: design-led and good at realising projects, and the other is good at business. The career path, though implicit, tends to be given to those good in business.
The company has drawn on this knowledge to build plants in China, Poland and Egypt.
The company also puts back the knowledge gained into education (MSc in Building Services Engineering in StrathclydeUniversity).
Also involved in laboratory design (Defra) and higher education (Universities), but in the main to do with clean rooms and lab-type facilities.
The company got into this line of work opportunistically 20 – 30 years ago when they first partnered with Glaxo in CountyDurham. It was the dominant industry at that time in Teeside with ICI and the like. / SME
Strategy of differentiation
Process rather than design
Knowledge by watching (intuitive)
Culture
Feeding back to education
Strategic alliance
HR / Company is made up of directors, associate directors, senior architects, architects and graduate trainees (from a range of Parts 1, 2 and 3 graduates). There is no formal training of trainees, apart from the trainees going back to University. There are only 2 trainees recently qualified in the Newastle office, and 2 from Teeside, but hardly any trainee in the London office (difficulties of recruitment). The company tries to retain newly qualified trainees, although this is not explicitly stated. The oldest architect is 63 years old.
Also there was a natural attrition of draughtsman (architects versus technicians) about 20 years ago.
There is a stable workforce with average experience of 10, 12 to 15 years.
The partners a few years ago set up a group to look at the retirement policy (succession planning).
There is training invested, although this tends to be reactionary and ad hoc. Knowledge is also learnt from people who attended external courses and brought the knowledge back. An example was given on customer care skills (see below on clients/customers).
A lot of knowledge exchange is through word of mouth, through peers, mentoring process (informal) and largely experiential. The company also encourages knowledge sharing (through eavesdropping) by deliberately introducing open plan offices and organising work in project teams of 4, 5 or 6 people (though most teams are between 3 – 4 people). / Experienced workforce
Move away from low-level skills
Succession planning
Knowledge leaked (positive) from training courses
Tacit knowledge transfer
Project team organisation
Supply Chain/Subcontractor / Where projects are done overseas (e.g. China, Poland and Egypt), design expertise including production information is retained in the UK base with the overseas partner dealing mainly with quality assurance and compliance issues specific to the country.
The company does not believe in outsourcing design or production information due to the issue of professional liability. As such, the company consciously gets work in for current capacity. The company adopts a mixed knowledge mix as opposed to retaining single specialisms in particular offices due to the issue of control (it was discovered that each branch members were committed mainly to their specific branch). / Compliance rather than outsourcing functions
Professional indemnity
Skills (knowledge) mix
Clients/Customers / Learnt from clients to start with, by asking questions (although there is a need to balance not displaying too much ignorance)
Much later, with repeat businesses and after gaining enough knowledge about the business of clean rooms, there was an attempt to develop a knowledge bank. The interviewee considers his company to act as a conduit of knowledge between clients.
Key characteristics of pharmaceutical sector: 6 years clean run on patents; strict confidentiality agreements (more on pharmaceutical processes rather than architectural design; although competitors could potentially second-guess pharmaceutical operations by looking at building plans).
There was an attempt to steer away from new clients, perceived to be high risk (new clients have a higher tendency of not coming to any fruition at the end of the process). / Development of systematic knowledge management systems
Characteristics of clients
Risks of new clients
Systematic approach to maximising benefits of knowledge / Training courses. An example was given in terms of customer care skills, when the business discovered that they were dealing with repeat businesses (65% of new commissions by fee income were from existing clients).
Library of past projects: stored by project
Largely based on personal experience, as the construction business is largely project-based typified by “temporary coalitions”. / Training courses
Library and post-project reviews
Experiential
Risk management / Not formalised, but new clients were, wherever possible, avoided to reduce the associated transaction costs.
Knowledge and productivity (and how to measure the success of knowledge) / Productivity is measured using “Time-minder” that logs job number and the time spent on a particular task. Mainly for cost-based accountability
Areas of Knowledge loss /
  1. Knowledge gained from clients (at the beginning; before returning some of that knowledge back later)
  2. Knowledge learnt from other professions
  3. Product specification, NBS specifications, institutional database (like BCIS)
  4. People moving
  5. Subcontractors
  6. Communication
  7. Advertising for jobs

Definition of knowledge leakage / Architectural knowledge versus knowledge outside architecture (e.g. clean rooms); the latter being gained experientially
Good knowledge equates with professional judgement
Knowledge is something you can flog with
Professional knowledge is competence, sector-specific knowledge
Knowledge is that which cannot be imitated, specifically the flow of people and the process and understanding of technical clean rooms in the company’s case – niche specialism.
Knowledge leakage relate to mechanisms where the niche knowledge is lost. Could be through advertising jobs, buying/selling of specific expertise (knowledge osmosis).
  1. Anything else that struck you as salient, interesting, illuminating or important in this interview?

Strategy of differentiation; sector/contextually specific knowledge associated with niche specialism
  1. What new (or remaining) target questions do you have in considering future interviews?

Use of Time-minder to track productivity; at what stage did it become important to systematically track knowledge? How do they discriminate between good and bad knowledge?
  1. Any general concerns?

N/A

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