Awwa RESEARCH FOUNDATION
	Knowledge Management Research
	The Awwa Research Foundation is a member-supported, international, nonprofit organization that sponsors research to enable water utilities, public health agencies and other professionals to provide safe and affordable drinking water to consumers.

Issue
More than 40% of the U.S. workforce will reach retirement age in the next five years. When these workers leave, they will take with them an enormous body of knowledge related to business practices, processes, history, operations and systems. To address this trend, the water and wastewater industry is attempting to better understand the ramifications, and to develop practical strategies that will help the industry overcome the accompanying hurdles.

Solution
Westin Engineering was commissioned by Awwa Research Foundation in 2004 to lead a research team to examine the applicability of Knowledge Management (KM) to the water industry. This diverse team included representatives from water utilities in North America and Europe, government agencies, professional societies and private industry.

This project was undertaken partly as a result of recent trends in other sectors, where tangible business payback from KM initiatives had been the basis for organizations in the automotive, pharmaceutical, military, retail, construction, high-technology industries and public sector agencies to embrace Knowledge Management.

Through a series of virtual and on-site working sessions and surveys, the team collaborated and interacted with leading KM subject matter experts and practitioners, including APQC and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

A central focus of the project team’s activities was the ability of KM to address pressing industry pressures and needs. Additional areas of focus were the corporate cultural implications and technology as an enabler of KM initiatives. Benchmark utility data was collected as part of project activities.

Utility participants included:

• Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility (Alaska)
• Austin Water Utility (Texas)
• Chicago Department of Water Management (Illinois)
• City of Cleveland Division of Water (Ohio)
• Columbus Water Works (Georgia)
• Dallas Water Utilities Department (Texas)
• Greater Cincinnati Water Works (Ohio)
• Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (Michigan)
• EPCOR Water Services (Alberta)
• County of Henrico Department of Public Utilities (Virginia)
• Lafayette Utilities System (Louisiana)
• Las Vegas Valley Water District (Nevada)
• Minneapolis Water Works (Minnesota)
• Oakland County Drain Commission (Michigan)
• Portland Water District (Maine)
• Portland Water Bureau (Oregon)
• San Diego County Water Authority (California)
• Seattle Public Utilities (Washington)
• Thames Water Utilities (United Kingdom).

Outcome
These efforts yielded an industry definition, identified the business case, constructed a relevant annotated bibliography of best practices and case studies from utilities and other business sectors, spawned an industry-related Web site and plotted future direction for additional knowledge management research.