Evaluation of a Knowledge Management Dashboard for Manufacturing SMEs in Resource Constrained Areas

Abstract

Decision support dashboards increase the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of decision making. Studies reveal that existing dashboards require heavy investment in network infrastructure and hence an increase in system costs which typically SMEs find difficult to invest in and more so for SMEs in resource constrained areas. The article presents the evaluation of the performance of a Knowledge Management (KM) Dashboard that was designed and a prototype implemented to support production and operational efficiency monitoring in a Manufacturing SME in a resource constrained setting. The evaluation of the performance of the Dashboard was carried out in 2(Two) Small-Medium Dairy Processing plants in South Western Uganda and we utilized data for 6(Six) months. An observational study and a survey with Eight(8) purposively selected participants as key informants for the interviews were conducted. The survey focused on the usefulness, usability and usage of the Dashboard. Usefulness is the value that the dashboard adds to decision making; usability is the extent to which the dashboard may be used; Usage is the actual application of the dashboard from the user’s perspective. All the participants (100%) believed that the dashboard was very useful. The majority of the participants (88%) reported that the dashboard performed its usage and all the participants found the dashboard usable. The Dashboard uses visualizations to show a quick overview of performance metrics and a complete picture of strategic information necessary to support managers to get the whole picture of what is happening in the enterprise quickly and making decisions. However, usage of the dashboard depends upon structuring procedures and processes within the enterprise which was largely lacking. Furthermore, the dashboard requires the users to be computer literate and to have a network connection for shared usage. Implementation of the dashboard with a combination of both knowledge repositories and knowledge manipulation has the potential to enhance decision making in SMEs. The data visualization techniques help to extract insights from knowledge repositories and generate real time production management information which has been evaluated as excellent modules of the dashboard. Human computer interaction principles when efficiently incorporated into user interface designs significantly increase the usability of a dashboard.