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design stage can facilitate knowledge flow for improving quality while maintaining time and cost.
Despite the abovementioned arguments, Pektaş 2006 highlighted the lack of research in better understanding and manipulating knowledge flows in project
organizations. Even though these organizations have the desire and need to learn from experience, Scott and Harris’s 1998 study noted reasons of lacking of time and
money and increasing pressure of upcoming work for not capturing and sharing knowledge effectively. For knowledge to be sustainable for competitive advantage
and the improvement of organizational performance, project organization must gather and store all its reusable knowledge and make it accessible to others Javernick et al.,
2007. Hence, this thesis supports Levitt 2007 who had suggested that future work about discovering how new processes and mechanisms can facilitate knowledge
sharing to deliver a built environment which is more economically, environmentally and socially sustainable through a global supply chain Levitt, 2007. It is in this
direction that this study wants to focus on.
1.2 Definition of Terms
In this section, we explain the frequently used terms.
Knowledge: Knowledge is a set of commitments and beliefs of its holder that enables
himher to undertake certain actions Nonaka 1994.
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Tacit knowledge: Tacit knowledge is highly personal, context specific, and hard to
formalize and communicate Polanyi, 1967.
Explicit knowledge: Explicit knowledge can readily be codified in words and
numbers, easily shared in manuals, and is easy to distribute. It can be stored as written documents or procedures and made available to others Payne and Sheehan,
2004.
Knowledge Management: knowledge Management deals with creating, securing,
capturing, coordinating, and combining, retrieving and distributing knowledge Tserng Lin, 2005.
Knowledge Conversion: Interaction between the two types of knowledge is called
knowledge conversion. Through the conversion process, tacit and explicit knowledge expands in both quality and quantity Nonaka, 2000.
Knowledge Flows: The process of moving knowledge by way of communicating to
retrieve or allocate working information of any knowledge type either tacit or explicit that would enable an individual or enterprise to complete a workflow
process Ibrahim, 2005.
Design process: Design is the process by which the needs, wishes, and desires of the
owner are defined, quantified, qualified, and communicated to the builder Sanvido, 1994.
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Conceptual Design: The conceptual design phase of any project is a stage of
building project life cycle in which major decisions are taken regarding the building type, occupancy, form, dimensions, and type of structural system Fenevis, 2000.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Incomplete knowledge flow between building project’s team members during conceptual design stage leads to cost and time overrun in building projects. Since,
Ibrahim and Paulson 2008 have identified the design development phase as critical phase where knowledge losses are initiated, this study is guided to focus on
knowledge moves between two critical professionals: the architect and the mechanicalelectrical engineers. Many mechanical and electrical requirements are
essential to consider from the early steps of design stage. Many experienced architects are familiar with the mechanical and electrical knowledge requirements and
the necessity of considering them at the right time. Due to their familiarity, these experts are more successful in preventing rework resulting from not considering
essential requirements. However, the existence of a plethora of requirements may make it difficult in keeping them all in mind. On the other hand, novice architects
may not have sufficient knowledge about what they should consider from the mechanicalelectrical engineering standpoint. In addition, their low-level experience
may lead them to ignoring those requirements at the right time. Hence, potential reworks in design integration may occur later, if not sooner. As a conclusion, this
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study attempt to expose the required mechanicalelectrical knowledge during conceptual design stage to reduce rework and its related over-cost that arises from
incomplete knowledge flow perspective. This study wants to propose a knowledge- based framework for concept design in which the right mechanical and electrical
knowledge can be specified at the right time.
1.4 Research Questions