- Email: [email protected]
Approach to Competence Modelling for Enterprise Knowledge Management
Proceedings of the 14th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing Bucharest, Romania, May 23-25, 2012
Approach to Competence Modelling for Enterprise Knowledge Management 5y*HZVNL3 , 0DáDFKRZVNLB.*
*West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, ul. Zolnierska 49, 71-210 Szczecin, Poland (Tel: +4891 449 5594; e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract: The ability to create new knowledge and to manage it is commonly recognized as one the most important quality of the modern and innovative organization. The management and control of knowledge and skills, and more recenWO\ WKH PDQDJHPHQW RI ILUPV¶ FRPSHWHQFLHV KDYH WXUQHG RXW WR EH HVVHQWLDO IDFWRUV RI LQGXVWULDO SURFHVVHV¶ SHUIRUPDQFH ,Q WKH SDSHU WKH DXWKRUV SUHVHQW WKH PHWKRG DQG WRROV IRU competency modelling for enterprise knowledge management. Competency modelling allows to PDQDJHPHQWNQRZOHGJHLQWKHHIILFLHQWDQGHIIHFWLYHZD\RQWKHVWXII¶VDQGSURMHcW¶VOHYHO7KHSURGXFW of this idea is the concept of the intangible production network for competence development and reusable Competence Object Library. Keywords: competence modelling, enterprise knowledge management, competence set, human resource management
1. INTRODUCTION Due to constant and rapid changes in the global economy knowledge is recognized as one of the most valuable resources. It this new conditionV GHVFULEHG DV ³NQRZOHGJHEDVHG VRFLHW\´ NQRZOHGJH EHFDPH D EDVLV IRU HYDOXDWLRQ RI individual as well as whole organizations (Zaikin et al. 2010). The ability to create new knowledge and to manage it is commonly recognized as one the most important quality of the modern and innovative organization (Kusztina et al., 2009). The continuous development of Web systems allows to created complete Internet working environment on different organization level. This situation is special notable in knowledge management systems (Marwick, 2003). The knowledge management systems are a crucial component of modern organization. In most cases the knowledge management systems decided about competitive advantage of organization (Sanchez, 2004). New approach for knowledge management expends the organization dimension on competence concept (Sampson and Fytros, 2008). Application of competence in companies allows to optimized task time, made more adequate human resources management and more efficient knowledge transfer process. In addition competence concept plays important role in employ process. Every position can be described very precisely by the competence and related qualification. In the paper two tools for the enterprise knowledge management, based on the competence, are proposed. The first tool is a model of intangible production network for competence development in the educational organization context. The educational organizations and distance learning are a good example of the intangible production for competence development. The network focused on the intangible production type, where production process utilized different types of knowledge and the competence is a final 978-3-902661-98-2/12/$20.00 © 2012 IFAC
product. The second tool is a Competence Object Library (COL). The presented tools have been already discussed in the field of HGXFDWLRQDO RUJDQLVDWLRQ 5y*HZVNL DQG 0DáDFKRZVNL , (5y*HZVNL, 2011). In this paper the authors make the approach more general and adapted to enterprise framework. The first attempt to such generalization was made in (0DáDFKRZVNL et al., 2011). 2. LITERATURE REVIEW The management and control of knowledge and skills, and PRUH UHFHQWO\ WKH PDQDJHPHQW RI ILUPV¶ FRPSHWHQFLHV KDYH WXUQHG RXW WR EH HVVHQWLDO IDFWRUV RI LQGXVWULDO SURFHVVHV¶ performance (Boucher et al., 2007). In addition the management aspect of competence is very complex. Such complexity can partially be managed by new modelling and decision aid approaches, based on a deeper formalisation of concepts like skills, competence, etc. Some proposition of competence concept utilization in industry context is presented in Tab. 1. Table 1. Competence concept discussion in industry context Industry context
Description
Tools
Competence demand for Flexible Supply Networks
Competence management offers concepts and approaches which can be applied to identify, systematically develop and integrate organizational competence of suppliers in flexible supply networks.
Extension of the software SPIDER architecture is proposed in order to match competence demand and available competences
(Sandkuhl and Tarasov, 2009)
Instruments for Numerous studies show that intellectual capital managers recognize the great Monitoring impact of knowledge and competences (individual or (Jussupovaorganizational) on the Mariethoz and enterprise competitive Probst, 2007) advantage. The eCEM is an approach and an information
1159
Corporate memory framework called µHOHFWURQLFFRPSHWHQFH DQGH[SHULHQFHPHPRU\¶ (eCEM)
10.3182/20120523-3-RO-2023.00331
INCOM 2012, May 23-25, 2012 Bucharest, Romania
vast set of definitions was put together by International Standard Organization that gives very coherent and brief definition of competence. According to ISO 9000:2005 the FRPSHWHQFHLV³GHPRQVWUDWHGDELOLW\WRDSSO\NQRZOHGJHDQG VNLOOV´ %DVLQJ RQ ,62 GHILQLWLRQ RI FRPSHWHQFH LW FDQ EH assumed, that since competence is described as ³GHPRQVWUDWHG DELOLW\´ LW FDQ EH XVHG DV D PHDVXUH RI personal performance and used in many application in human resource management or learning and professional training management.
management tool, which guides the enterprise in its intellectual capital acquisition, measurement, monitoring and exploitation. Performance management (Boucher et al., 2007)
Personnel assignment planning (Zulch and Becker, 2007)
The main problem is how to CRAI model deal with internal and (competence, resource, external competencies in an aspect, individual), efficient and reactive way, so as to determine where in the organisation people can be the best sources of performance enhancement.
3.1. Mathematical Model of Competence
The greatest scope of Personnel-oriented possibilities for the simulation tool ESPE assignment of persons to functions and workplaces as function elements in manufacturing systems is found in the long-term planning of personnel structures. In order to investigate these aspects, specialised personnel oriented simulation tools are needed.
The concept of competence still lacks formal models allowing to create quantitative methods for competence analysis. One of the most advanced idea of this type is the approach called competence sets. This approach was for the first time introduced in (Yu and Zhang 1990, 1992) and is closely related to the concept of habitual domain (Yu 1991). In these works competence is defined as the set containing skills, information and knowledge of a person (acquired competence set denoted Sk) or related to a given job or a task (required competence set Tr).
Most of the methods used to modelling competence are based on the meta-model descriptions (Tab. 1). However, the information system development requires more accurate methods. On of the approach is UML based modelling, where the Unified Enterprise Competence Modelling Language has been extended to Unified Enterprise Competence Modelling Language (UECML) by (Pepiot et al. 2007). The UECML jest devoted to the area of competencebased enterprise modelling. The uses of UECML is motivated by pragmatic needs: (i) a better definition of the enterprise modelling concepts, engineering methods and business processes based on competences, (ii) a clear identification of the role of competence and its constitutive elements, (iii) a direct integration of human resource aspects, with the goal to manage and control competences. Other approach provides the fuzzy approach for the evaluation of the competences. The approach is mainly based on fuzzy logic which handles the integration of subjective elements (Pepiot et al. 2008). The main development goal for discussed methods is to reach clean formalization and evaluation of the pertinence of competences. However, none of presented methods allows to calculate relations between competences. In the addition the quantity approach to competence modelling is limited sue to meta- base nature of methods.
Most publications on competence sets deal with optimization and cost analysis of the competence set expansion process. This process is described as obtaining new skills and adding them to the actual acquired competence set of a person. The cost and pace of obtaining new skills depends on elements of actual competence set and how close these elements are related with the new skill. Methods of optimal competence set expansion consist of determining the order of obtaining successive competences that provides minimal cost. Competences that need to be obtained are defined by set Tr(E)\Sk(P). The optimisation problem is usually solved by finding the shortest path in an oriented graph, in which vertices represent competences and arcs represent the relations between them (Yu and Zhang 1990). In the early stage of the research on competence sets, competence was presented as a classical set containing knowledge, skills and information necessary to solve a problem. However, assessing the presence of a competence in binary terms ± one has a competence or not at all ± turned out to be insufficient regarding the continuous nature of competence. On account of that, it was proposed to present human competence as a fuzzy set, defined as follows (Wang 1995): A
{( x , P A ( x )) x X }
(1)
where: µ A(x) is the membership function assessing the membership of an element x in relation to set A by mapping X into membership space [0; 1], µ A : X o[0; 1].
3. COMPETENCE CONCEPT A very practical concept of the knowledge models, that enables development of intelligent systems for human UHVRXUFH PDQDJHPHQW LV WKH FRQFHSW RI ³FRPSHWHQFH´ Survey of the scientific literature in the fields of knowledge modelling, human resource management and learning management provides many different and sometimes XQDPELJXRXV GHILQLWLRQV RI WKH QRWLRQ ³FRPSHWHQFH´ 7KLV
Regarding the definition of the fuzzy set it is possible to define the notion of fuzzy competence strength. For each competence g, its strength is a function of a person P or an event E in the context of which the competence is assessed: .: {P or E} o[0; 1].
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(- -)
(+)
Student works with procedural knowledge
(- -)
Servicing
(+)
Student works with project knowledge
Servicing
(- -)
(+) (-) (+ +) (-) (+ +) (-) (+ +) Student works with theoretical knowledge
Repository
Servicing
1.
The competence development process can be presented in the form of the system 7KH VWXGHQW¶V SUHIHUHQFH IXQFtion, like PRWLYDWLRQ IXQFWLRQ 5y*HZVNL .XV]WLQD , reflects student's approach to the acquisition of knowledge. On one hand, a student can be focused on the routine task. In this case, after the stage completion the student is transfer to the next stage. If student choose the complex task, the knowledge acquire process is hard and require for the student to use the creative approaches. However, the success of its completion not only allows student to move to the next stage, but also the new knowledge is included in the repository. This event is recorded in the student's portfoOLR DQG LV SDUW RI VWXGHQW¶V
Adding knowledge to the repository
The production process for competence development is presented on fig. 4. The student delivers the new portion of the theoretical knowledge from the repository in accordance with the course curriculum and arrangements with the teacher. When the processing of the new portion is finished the student moves to servicing block in order to verify the theoretical knowledge. The student's choice one of the alternative tasks for new knowledge assessment. The same procedure is repeated for procedural and project knowledge DVZHOO,QWKHSURFHVVRIVHUYLFLQJHDFKVWXGHQW¶VRSHUDWLRQLV interpret as a student-teacher collaboration based on didactic materials contained in the repository. The specificity of this cooperation is as follows: The didactic material is presented in the form of an ontology divided into appropriate portions of knowledge, each of which covers the range of theoretical, procedural and project knowledge. 2. The student used self-education for knowledge acquires and cooperation with the teacher for consultation. 3. The time of cooperation is limited. Each stage of knowledge processing can be finished in following way (see fig. 4): (-) return to appropriate decision block, (--) exit from the production system, (+) departure from servicing block with positive assessment, (++) departure from servicing block with positive assessment and due to H[FHOOHQFH RI VWXGHQW¶V ZRUN QHZ NQRZOHGJH JHQHUDWHG E\ student, is transferred to the repository (in the form of approved knowledge model).
Adding knowledge to the repository
intellectual capital after the completion of the learning process.
Adding knowledge to the repository
The figure 3 presents the structure of the knowledge object. The knowledge object reflected the domain knowledge based on the different ontology types. The knowledge object is divided into different portions of knowledge, which together form a competence. Each operation is a separated and predetermined based on the subject curriculum. The knowledge object is combining the theoretical, procedural, and project knowledge. The main condition for mastery the knowledge object is to maintain the series of collaboration within the cycle for each kind of knowledge. The repository is founded on the ontological model of the domain. It assumes that domain knowledge representation is based on the integration of theoretical, procedural, and project knowledge. Adding to a repository new knowledge portion is a integration of a new piece of knowledge with an existing ontology. Each of the new knowledge portions can be added to theoretical, procedural, and project knowledge.
Fig. 4. Model of the competence development as a production process 5. COMPETENCE OBJECT LIBRARY Recently, scientific research in the domain of competence and competence management has been dynamically developing. The biggest effort of the researchers is put on definitions and competence structure modelling. Among several big initiatives researching competence some of them like IEEE Reusable Competency Definition (IMS RDCEO 2009) and (HR-XML Consortium 2006) has made a big step forward defining well common models for competency interoperability. The most complete model of this type was proposed by TENCompetence project (TENCompetence 2009). TENCompetence Domain Model (TCDM) proposed by this initiative provides complex structure model supporting development of software tools for competence management purposes. However, TCDM still lacks mathematical models of competence, that would enable
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Implementation of competence expansion cost computing algorithm can be called with methods
Activity, job, skill, attitude, ability or learning objective for which competence requirements can be specified.
Competent actor performing activities. + Na me + Surna me +...
Requirements in terms of competence to be fulfilled by a person.
Pe rs o n Va c a nc y
+ Na me + De scription
Description of competences possessed by a person. A c q uire d Co m p e t e nc e Pro file R e q uire d Co m p e t e nc e Pro file
+ C ompa re Prof ile ()
Co m p e t e nc e Pro file
+ Na me + De scription
Collection of elements of competence.
+ C ompa re Se t()
Co m p e t e nc e S e t
Indicates the level at which the activity of a person is considered.
+ Na me + Le v e l + De scription
Pro fic ie nc y Le v e l
Effective performance of a person within a context at a specific level of proficiency
Collection of competence sets.
+ Stre ngth
comprise compe te nce s only in the sa me conte x t a nd a t the sa me prof ice ncy le v e l
R e la t io n
Ele m e nt OfCo m p e t e nc e
Co m p e t e nc e
+ Na me + De scription
*
+ Stre ngth
only f or compe te nce s in the sa me conte x t a nd a t the sa me prof ice ncy le v e l
+ Na me
1. . *
*
1
1. . *
+ Na me + De scription
*
1
0. . 1
Ca t e g o ry Co nt e x t
Any form of knowledge, skill, attitude, ability or learning objective that can be described in a context of learning, education, training or any specific business context
5.2. Data Structures for The Competence Object Library
The UML Class Diagram depicted in Figure 5 is a synthesis of two background approaches: TENCompetence Domain Model and Fuzzy Competence Sets. The basis for class structure modelling comes from TENCompetence DM. The original structure was extended with classes representing notions form Fuzzy Competence Sets in order to adapt COL to its analytical methods operating on sets, relations and graphs defined by this relations.
+ globa lID + globa lNa me + Source
Co m p e t e nc y
One of the main problem in integrating two approaches into one framework is to properly match notions according to their semantic meaning. For example fuzzy competence set analysis does not introduce the notion of competency. Semantically the closest notion to competency is skill. Competence in both approaches has different definitions and cannot be considered as semantically identical. Table 2 contains main notions from TENCompetence DM and Fuzzy Competence Set Analysis. A row from the table indicates the closest semantic equivalents. This allows to compare namespaces of two approaches and define namespace for COL.
Theoretical analysis of two source approaches for Competence Object Library provides background for its structure modelling. The COL structure was modelled with UML as UML Class Diagram. The choice of UML was determined by the fact that it is the most common and recognizable notation among software engineering professionals.
*
subca te gory
5.1. Conceptualization of the Competence Object Library Two approaches ± TCDM and fuzzy competence sets ± provides completely different perspective of competence modelling. The first one is very precise in terms of definitions of different competence related concepts, structure modelling and link with competency standards, while the second one defines competence on very general level but provides accurate and verified analytical methods for quantitative analysis. Development of software tools for advanced competence analysis requires qualities of both of these approaches: complete and well defined data structures and algorithms providing quantitative computing methods.
Entity derived from competence that can form a set.
Arbitrary association of competences within a context and at specific proficiency level.
Indicates the relative level in a taxonomic hierarchy.
One of the ideas of this article is to propose concept of reusable Competence Object Library (COL) that integrates objective data structures proposed in TCDM and the method for fuzzy competence set expansion cost analysis (FCSECA) proposed in (Wang 1995) into one common framework. This library would allow rapid development of competence management systems for different purposes, for example: employee assessment, staffing, human resource allocation etc.).
CompetenceSet.CompareSet() and CompetenceProfile.CompareProfile(). These methods return a real value proportional to the difference between two competence sets/profiles computed using the method that can be found in (Wang 1995). Details of UML Class Diagram are presented in Figure 5.
Circumstances and conditions surrounding actions performed by a person.
development of system performing quantitative analysis of competence.
Fig. 5. UML Class Diagram for Competence Object Library The COL is developed as Java class library that in future will serve as the engine driving different types of human resource management applications. The library uses JPA (Java Persistence Api) technology to map object data model of personal competences to relational database and store competence profiles in any of the major database management system available on the market (mysql, postrgesql, oracle, etc). 6. CONCLUSIONS Development of effective methods for quantitative competence analysis can be found by some researchers as one of the most important challenge in the context of human resource and enterprise knowledge management. These methods may find their practical applications in many fields, HVSHFLDOO\LQPRGHUQFRPSDQLHVVZLWFKLQJIURPµWHFKnology-
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FHQWUHG¶ WR µKXPDQ UHVRXUFH-FHQWUHG¶ DSSURDFK WR WKHLU production processes organisation and management (Boucher et al. 2007). In the opinion of authors of this article the proposed approach of COL is the step forward towards better automatisation of human resource related data in production companies. The library by integrating quantitative computing methods with complex data structure of competence modelling and objectoriented programming paradigm provides complete solution for rapid software development for different human resource management applications. REFERENCES Boucher X., Bonjour E., Matta N. (2007) Competence management in industrial processes, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 95-97 Boucher X., Bonjour E., Grabot B. (2007) Formalisation and use of competencies for industrial performance optimisation: A survey, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 98±117 HR-XML Consortium (2006), HR-XML, http://www.hrxml.org/ IMS RDCEO (2009), Reusable Definition of Competency or Educational Objective (RDCEO). http://www.imsglobal.org/competencies Jussupova-Mariethoz Y,. Probst, A.R (2007) Business concepts ontology for an enterprise performance and competences monitoring, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 118-129 Kusztina E., Zaikine O., 5y*HZVNL P., 0DáDFKRZVNL B. (2009), Cost estimation algorithm and decision-making model for curriculum modification in educational organization, European Journal of Operational Research, 197, 2, 752-763 0DáDFKRZVNL % 5y*HZVNL 3 =DLNLQ 2 Competence Modelling Tool for Enterprise Knowledge Management, Management and Production Engineering Review, 2(2), 22-28. Marwick A.D. (2001) Knowledge management technology. IBM Systems Journal 40(4), 814±830 Pepiot G., Cheikhrouhou N., Furbringer J., Glardon R. (2007) UECML: Unified Enterprise Competence Modelling Language, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 130± 142 Pepiot G., Cheikhrouhou N., Furbringer J., Glardon R. (2008), A fuzzy approach for the evaluation of competences, International Journal of Production Economics, 112, 1, 336-353 5y*HZVNL3.XV]WLQD( 0RWLYDWLRQ0RGHO in Community-Built System, In: Eric Pardede (ed.) Community-Built Database: Research and Development, Springer-Verlag Book, 183-205. 5y*HZVNL3.XV]WLQD(7DGHXVLHZLF]5=DLNLQ2 (2011). Intelligent Open Learning Systems: Concepts, models and algorithms. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Vol. 22, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. 5y*HZVNL 3 &RQFHSW RI LQWDQJLEOH Sroduction network system for competence development in open
and distance learning, Management and Production Engineering Review, 2(3), 52-62. 5y*HZVNL 3 0DáDFKRZVNL % 6\VWHP )RU &UHDWLYH Distance Learning Environment Development Based On Competence Management, KES 2010, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence No. 6279, pp. 180-189. 5y*HZVNL 3 0DáDFKRZVNL % &RPSHWHQFH Management In Knowledge-Based Organisation: Case Study Based On Higher Education Organisation, KSEM 2009, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence No. 5914, 358-369 Sanchez R. (2004) Understanding competence-based management: Identifying and managing five modes of competence. Journal of Business Research 57, 5, 518± 532 Sampson D., Fytros, D. (2008) Competence Models in Technology-Enhanced Competence-Based Learning. In: Adelsberger, H.H., Kinshuk, Pawlowski, J.M., Sampson, D. (eds.): Handbook on Information Technologies for Education and Training,. 2nd edition, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg 155±177 Sandkuhl K., Tarasov V. (2009). Modelling Competence Demand for Flexible Supply Networks. In 13th IFAC symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing (pp. 103-108). IFAC TENCompetence (2009), TENCompetence - Building the European Network for Lifelong Competence Development, EU IST-TEL project, http://www.tencompetence.org/ Wang H-F. (1995) Wang C.H.: Modeling of optimal expansion of a fuzzy competence set, International Transactions in Operational Research, Vol. 5, No. 5413± 424 Yu P.L., Zhang D. (1990) A foundation for competence set analysis. Mathematical Social Sciences 20, 251±299 Yu P.L. (1991) Habitual Domains. Operations Research Nov/Dec 39(6), 869±876 Yu, P.L., Zhang, D. (1992) Optimal expansion of competence sets and decision support. Information Systems and Operational Research 30 (2), 68±85 =DLNLQ2)\áDZVNL$0DáDFKRZVNL% (2010), Competence based approach to intelligent human resource management, Proceedings of the 10th IFAC Workshop RQ,QWHOOLJHQW0DQXIDFWXULQJ6\VWHPV ,06¶ , Lisbon, Portugal Zulch G., Becker M. (2007) Computer-supported competence management: Evolution of industrial processes as life cycles of organizations, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 143±150
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Approach to Competence Modelling for Enterprise Knowledge Management 5y*HZVNL3 , 0DáDFKRZVNLB.*
*West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, ul. Zolnierska 49, 71-210 Szczecin, Poland (Tel: +4891 449 5594; e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract: The ability to create new knowledge and to manage it is commonly recognized as one the most important quality of the modern and innovative organization. The management and control of knowledge and skills, and more recenWO\ WKH PDQDJHPHQW RI ILUPV¶ FRPSHWHQFLHV KDYH WXUQHG RXW WR EH HVVHQWLDO IDFWRUV RI LQGXVWULDO SURFHVVHV¶ SHUIRUPDQFH ,Q WKH SDSHU WKH DXWKRUV SUHVHQW WKH PHWKRG DQG WRROV IRU competency modelling for enterprise knowledge management. Competency modelling allows to PDQDJHPHQWNQRZOHGJHLQWKHHIILFLHQWDQGHIIHFWLYHZD\RQWKHVWXII¶VDQGSURMHcW¶VOHYHO7KHSURGXFW of this idea is the concept of the intangible production network for competence development and reusable Competence Object Library. Keywords: competence modelling, enterprise knowledge management, competence set, human resource management
1. INTRODUCTION Due to constant and rapid changes in the global economy knowledge is recognized as one of the most valuable resources. It this new conditionV GHVFULEHG DV ³NQRZOHGJHEDVHG VRFLHW\´ NQRZOHGJH EHFDPH D EDVLV IRU HYDOXDWLRQ RI individual as well as whole organizations (Zaikin et al. 2010). The ability to create new knowledge and to manage it is commonly recognized as one the most important quality of the modern and innovative organization (Kusztina et al., 2009). The continuous development of Web systems allows to created complete Internet working environment on different organization level. This situation is special notable in knowledge management systems (Marwick, 2003). The knowledge management systems are a crucial component of modern organization. In most cases the knowledge management systems decided about competitive advantage of organization (Sanchez, 2004). New approach for knowledge management expends the organization dimension on competence concept (Sampson and Fytros, 2008). Application of competence in companies allows to optimized task time, made more adequate human resources management and more efficient knowledge transfer process. In addition competence concept plays important role in employ process. Every position can be described very precisely by the competence and related qualification. In the paper two tools for the enterprise knowledge management, based on the competence, are proposed. The first tool is a model of intangible production network for competence development in the educational organization context. The educational organizations and distance learning are a good example of the intangible production for competence development. The network focused on the intangible production type, where production process utilized different types of knowledge and the competence is a final 978-3-902661-98-2/12/$20.00 © 2012 IFAC
product. The second tool is a Competence Object Library (COL). The presented tools have been already discussed in the field of HGXFDWLRQDO RUJDQLVDWLRQ 5y*HZVNL DQG 0DáDFKRZVNL , (5y*HZVNL, 2011). In this paper the authors make the approach more general and adapted to enterprise framework. The first attempt to such generalization was made in (0DáDFKRZVNL et al., 2011). 2. LITERATURE REVIEW The management and control of knowledge and skills, and PRUH UHFHQWO\ WKH PDQDJHPHQW RI ILUPV¶ FRPSHWHQFLHV KDYH WXUQHG RXW WR EH HVVHQWLDO IDFWRUV RI LQGXVWULDO SURFHVVHV¶ performance (Boucher et al., 2007). In addition the management aspect of competence is very complex. Such complexity can partially be managed by new modelling and decision aid approaches, based on a deeper formalisation of concepts like skills, competence, etc. Some proposition of competence concept utilization in industry context is presented in Tab. 1. Table 1. Competence concept discussion in industry context Industry context
Description
Tools
Competence demand for Flexible Supply Networks
Competence management offers concepts and approaches which can be applied to identify, systematically develop and integrate organizational competence of suppliers in flexible supply networks.
Extension of the software SPIDER architecture is proposed in order to match competence demand and available competences
(Sandkuhl and Tarasov, 2009)
Instruments for Numerous studies show that intellectual capital managers recognize the great Monitoring impact of knowledge and competences (individual or (Jussupovaorganizational) on the Mariethoz and enterprise competitive Probst, 2007) advantage. The eCEM is an approach and an information
1159
Corporate memory framework called µHOHFWURQLFFRPSHWHQFH DQGH[SHULHQFHPHPRU\¶ (eCEM)
10.3182/20120523-3-RO-2023.00331
INCOM 2012, May 23-25, 2012 Bucharest, Romania
vast set of definitions was put together by International Standard Organization that gives very coherent and brief definition of competence. According to ISO 9000:2005 the FRPSHWHQFHLV³GHPRQVWUDWHGDELOLW\WRDSSO\NQRZOHGJHDQG VNLOOV´ %DVLQJ RQ ,62 GHILQLWLRQ RI FRPSHWHQFH LW FDQ EH assumed, that since competence is described as ³GHPRQVWUDWHG DELOLW\´ LW FDQ EH XVHG DV D PHDVXUH RI personal performance and used in many application in human resource management or learning and professional training management.
management tool, which guides the enterprise in its intellectual capital acquisition, measurement, monitoring and exploitation. Performance management (Boucher et al., 2007)
Personnel assignment planning (Zulch and Becker, 2007)
The main problem is how to CRAI model deal with internal and (competence, resource, external competencies in an aspect, individual), efficient and reactive way, so as to determine where in the organisation people can be the best sources of performance enhancement.
3.1. Mathematical Model of Competence
The greatest scope of Personnel-oriented possibilities for the simulation tool ESPE assignment of persons to functions and workplaces as function elements in manufacturing systems is found in the long-term planning of personnel structures. In order to investigate these aspects, specialised personnel oriented simulation tools are needed.
The concept of competence still lacks formal models allowing to create quantitative methods for competence analysis. One of the most advanced idea of this type is the approach called competence sets. This approach was for the first time introduced in (Yu and Zhang 1990, 1992) and is closely related to the concept of habitual domain (Yu 1991). In these works competence is defined as the set containing skills, information and knowledge of a person (acquired competence set denoted Sk) or related to a given job or a task (required competence set Tr).
Most of the methods used to modelling competence are based on the meta-model descriptions (Tab. 1). However, the information system development requires more accurate methods. On of the approach is UML based modelling, where the Unified Enterprise Competence Modelling Language has been extended to Unified Enterprise Competence Modelling Language (UECML) by (Pepiot et al. 2007). The UECML jest devoted to the area of competencebased enterprise modelling. The uses of UECML is motivated by pragmatic needs: (i) a better definition of the enterprise modelling concepts, engineering methods and business processes based on competences, (ii) a clear identification of the role of competence and its constitutive elements, (iii) a direct integration of human resource aspects, with the goal to manage and control competences. Other approach provides the fuzzy approach for the evaluation of the competences. The approach is mainly based on fuzzy logic which handles the integration of subjective elements (Pepiot et al. 2008). The main development goal for discussed methods is to reach clean formalization and evaluation of the pertinence of competences. However, none of presented methods allows to calculate relations between competences. In the addition the quantity approach to competence modelling is limited sue to meta- base nature of methods.
Most publications on competence sets deal with optimization and cost analysis of the competence set expansion process. This process is described as obtaining new skills and adding them to the actual acquired competence set of a person. The cost and pace of obtaining new skills depends on elements of actual competence set and how close these elements are related with the new skill. Methods of optimal competence set expansion consist of determining the order of obtaining successive competences that provides minimal cost. Competences that need to be obtained are defined by set Tr(E)\Sk(P). The optimisation problem is usually solved by finding the shortest path in an oriented graph, in which vertices represent competences and arcs represent the relations between them (Yu and Zhang 1990). In the early stage of the research on competence sets, competence was presented as a classical set containing knowledge, skills and information necessary to solve a problem. However, assessing the presence of a competence in binary terms ± one has a competence or not at all ± turned out to be insufficient regarding the continuous nature of competence. On account of that, it was proposed to present human competence as a fuzzy set, defined as follows (Wang 1995): A
{( x , P A ( x )) x X }
(1)
where: µ A(x) is the membership function assessing the membership of an element x in relation to set A by mapping X into membership space [0; 1], µ A : X o[0; 1].
3. COMPETENCE CONCEPT A very practical concept of the knowledge models, that enables development of intelligent systems for human UHVRXUFH PDQDJHPHQW LV WKH FRQFHSW RI ³FRPSHWHQFH´ Survey of the scientific literature in the fields of knowledge modelling, human resource management and learning management provides many different and sometimes XQDPELJXRXV GHILQLWLRQV RI WKH QRWLRQ ³FRPSHWHQFH´ 7KLV
Regarding the definition of the fuzzy set it is possible to define the notion of fuzzy competence strength. For each competence g, its strength is a function of a person P or an event E in the context of which the competence is assessed: .: {P or E} o[0; 1].
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(- -)
(+)
Student works with procedural knowledge
(- -)
Servicing
(+)
Student works with project knowledge
Servicing
(- -)
(+) (-) (+ +) (-) (+ +) (-) (+ +) Student works with theoretical knowledge
Repository
Servicing
1.
The competence development process can be presented in the form of the system 7KH VWXGHQW¶V SUHIHUHQFH IXQFtion, like PRWLYDWLRQ IXQFWLRQ 5y*HZVNL .XV]WLQD , reflects student's approach to the acquisition of knowledge. On one hand, a student can be focused on the routine task. In this case, after the stage completion the student is transfer to the next stage. If student choose the complex task, the knowledge acquire process is hard and require for the student to use the creative approaches. However, the success of its completion not only allows student to move to the next stage, but also the new knowledge is included in the repository. This event is recorded in the student's portfoOLR DQG LV SDUW RI VWXGHQW¶V
Adding knowledge to the repository
The production process for competence development is presented on fig. 4. The student delivers the new portion of the theoretical knowledge from the repository in accordance with the course curriculum and arrangements with the teacher. When the processing of the new portion is finished the student moves to servicing block in order to verify the theoretical knowledge. The student's choice one of the alternative tasks for new knowledge assessment. The same procedure is repeated for procedural and project knowledge DVZHOO,QWKHSURFHVVRIVHUYLFLQJHDFKVWXGHQW¶VRSHUDWLRQLV interpret as a student-teacher collaboration based on didactic materials contained in the repository. The specificity of this cooperation is as follows: The didactic material is presented in the form of an ontology divided into appropriate portions of knowledge, each of which covers the range of theoretical, procedural and project knowledge. 2. The student used self-education for knowledge acquires and cooperation with the teacher for consultation. 3. The time of cooperation is limited. Each stage of knowledge processing can be finished in following way (see fig. 4): (-) return to appropriate decision block, (--) exit from the production system, (+) departure from servicing block with positive assessment, (++) departure from servicing block with positive assessment and due to H[FHOOHQFH RI VWXGHQW¶V ZRUN QHZ NQRZOHGJH JHQHUDWHG E\ student, is transferred to the repository (in the form of approved knowledge model).
Adding knowledge to the repository
intellectual capital after the completion of the learning process.
Adding knowledge to the repository
The figure 3 presents the structure of the knowledge object. The knowledge object reflected the domain knowledge based on the different ontology types. The knowledge object is divided into different portions of knowledge, which together form a competence. Each operation is a separated and predetermined based on the subject curriculum. The knowledge object is combining the theoretical, procedural, and project knowledge. The main condition for mastery the knowledge object is to maintain the series of collaboration within the cycle for each kind of knowledge. The repository is founded on the ontological model of the domain. It assumes that domain knowledge representation is based on the integration of theoretical, procedural, and project knowledge. Adding to a repository new knowledge portion is a integration of a new piece of knowledge with an existing ontology. Each of the new knowledge portions can be added to theoretical, procedural, and project knowledge.
Fig. 4. Model of the competence development as a production process 5. COMPETENCE OBJECT LIBRARY Recently, scientific research in the domain of competence and competence management has been dynamically developing. The biggest effort of the researchers is put on definitions and competence structure modelling. Among several big initiatives researching competence some of them like IEEE Reusable Competency Definition (IMS RDCEO 2009) and (HR-XML Consortium 2006) has made a big step forward defining well common models for competency interoperability. The most complete model of this type was proposed by TENCompetence project (TENCompetence 2009). TENCompetence Domain Model (TCDM) proposed by this initiative provides complex structure model supporting development of software tools for competence management purposes. However, TCDM still lacks mathematical models of competence, that would enable
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Implementation of competence expansion cost computing algorithm can be called with methods
Activity, job, skill, attitude, ability or learning objective for which competence requirements can be specified.
Competent actor performing activities. + Na me + Surna me +...
Requirements in terms of competence to be fulfilled by a person.
Pe rs o n Va c a nc y
+ Na me + De scription
Description of competences possessed by a person. A c q uire d Co m p e t e nc e Pro file R e q uire d Co m p e t e nc e Pro file
+ C ompa re Prof ile ()
Co m p e t e nc e Pro file
+ Na me + De scription
Collection of elements of competence.
+ C ompa re Se t()
Co m p e t e nc e S e t
Indicates the level at which the activity of a person is considered.
+ Na me + Le v e l + De scription
Pro fic ie nc y Le v e l
Effective performance of a person within a context at a specific level of proficiency
Collection of competence sets.
+ Stre ngth
comprise compe te nce s only in the sa me conte x t a nd a t the sa me prof ice ncy le v e l
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Any form of knowledge, skill, attitude, ability or learning objective that can be described in a context of learning, education, training or any specific business context
5.2. Data Structures for The Competence Object Library
The UML Class Diagram depicted in Figure 5 is a synthesis of two background approaches: TENCompetence Domain Model and Fuzzy Competence Sets. The basis for class structure modelling comes from TENCompetence DM. The original structure was extended with classes representing notions form Fuzzy Competence Sets in order to adapt COL to its analytical methods operating on sets, relations and graphs defined by this relations.
+ globa lID + globa lNa me + Source
Co m p e t e nc y
One of the main problem in integrating two approaches into one framework is to properly match notions according to their semantic meaning. For example fuzzy competence set analysis does not introduce the notion of competency. Semantically the closest notion to competency is skill. Competence in both approaches has different definitions and cannot be considered as semantically identical. Table 2 contains main notions from TENCompetence DM and Fuzzy Competence Set Analysis. A row from the table indicates the closest semantic equivalents. This allows to compare namespaces of two approaches and define namespace for COL.
Theoretical analysis of two source approaches for Competence Object Library provides background for its structure modelling. The COL structure was modelled with UML as UML Class Diagram. The choice of UML was determined by the fact that it is the most common and recognizable notation among software engineering professionals.
*
subca te gory
5.1. Conceptualization of the Competence Object Library Two approaches ± TCDM and fuzzy competence sets ± provides completely different perspective of competence modelling. The first one is very precise in terms of definitions of different competence related concepts, structure modelling and link with competency standards, while the second one defines competence on very general level but provides accurate and verified analytical methods for quantitative analysis. Development of software tools for advanced competence analysis requires qualities of both of these approaches: complete and well defined data structures and algorithms providing quantitative computing methods.
Entity derived from competence that can form a set.
Arbitrary association of competences within a context and at specific proficiency level.
Indicates the relative level in a taxonomic hierarchy.
One of the ideas of this article is to propose concept of reusable Competence Object Library (COL) that integrates objective data structures proposed in TCDM and the method for fuzzy competence set expansion cost analysis (FCSECA) proposed in (Wang 1995) into one common framework. This library would allow rapid development of competence management systems for different purposes, for example: employee assessment, staffing, human resource allocation etc.).
CompetenceSet.CompareSet() and CompetenceProfile.CompareProfile(). These methods return a real value proportional to the difference between two competence sets/profiles computed using the method that can be found in (Wang 1995). Details of UML Class Diagram are presented in Figure 5.
Circumstances and conditions surrounding actions performed by a person.
development of system performing quantitative analysis of competence.
Fig. 5. UML Class Diagram for Competence Object Library The COL is developed as Java class library that in future will serve as the engine driving different types of human resource management applications. The library uses JPA (Java Persistence Api) technology to map object data model of personal competences to relational database and store competence profiles in any of the major database management system available on the market (mysql, postrgesql, oracle, etc). 6. CONCLUSIONS Development of effective methods for quantitative competence analysis can be found by some researchers as one of the most important challenge in the context of human resource and enterprise knowledge management. These methods may find their practical applications in many fields, HVSHFLDOO\LQPRGHUQFRPSDQLHVVZLWFKLQJIURPµWHFKnology-
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FHQWUHG¶ WR µKXPDQ UHVRXUFH-FHQWUHG¶ DSSURDFK WR WKHLU production processes organisation and management (Boucher et al. 2007). In the opinion of authors of this article the proposed approach of COL is the step forward towards better automatisation of human resource related data in production companies. The library by integrating quantitative computing methods with complex data structure of competence modelling and objectoriented programming paradigm provides complete solution for rapid software development for different human resource management applications. REFERENCES Boucher X., Bonjour E., Matta N. (2007) Competence management in industrial processes, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 95-97 Boucher X., Bonjour E., Grabot B. (2007) Formalisation and use of competencies for industrial performance optimisation: A survey, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 98±117 HR-XML Consortium (2006), HR-XML, http://www.hrxml.org/ IMS RDCEO (2009), Reusable Definition of Competency or Educational Objective (RDCEO). http://www.imsglobal.org/competencies Jussupova-Mariethoz Y,. Probst, A.R (2007) Business concepts ontology for an enterprise performance and competences monitoring, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 118-129 Kusztina E., Zaikine O., 5y*HZVNL P., 0DáDFKRZVNL B. (2009), Cost estimation algorithm and decision-making model for curriculum modification in educational organization, European Journal of Operational Research, 197, 2, 752-763 0DáDFKRZVNL % 5y*HZVNL 3 =DLNLQ 2 Competence Modelling Tool for Enterprise Knowledge Management, Management and Production Engineering Review, 2(2), 22-28. Marwick A.D. (2001) Knowledge management technology. IBM Systems Journal 40(4), 814±830 Pepiot G., Cheikhrouhou N., Furbringer J., Glardon R. (2007) UECML: Unified Enterprise Competence Modelling Language, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 130± 142 Pepiot G., Cheikhrouhou N., Furbringer J., Glardon R. (2008), A fuzzy approach for the evaluation of competences, International Journal of Production Economics, 112, 1, 336-353 5y*HZVNL3.XV]WLQD( 0RWLYDWLRQ0RGHO in Community-Built System, In: Eric Pardede (ed.) Community-Built Database: Research and Development, Springer-Verlag Book, 183-205. 5y*HZVNL3.XV]WLQD(7DGHXVLHZLF]5=DLNLQ2 (2011). Intelligent Open Learning Systems: Concepts, models and algorithms. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Vol. 22, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. 5y*HZVNL 3 &RQFHSW RI LQWDQJLEOH Sroduction network system for competence development in open
and distance learning, Management and Production Engineering Review, 2(3), 52-62. 5y*HZVNL 3 0DáDFKRZVNL % 6\VWHP )RU &UHDWLYH Distance Learning Environment Development Based On Competence Management, KES 2010, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence No. 6279, pp. 180-189. 5y*HZVNL 3 0DáDFKRZVNL % &RPSHWHQFH Management In Knowledge-Based Organisation: Case Study Based On Higher Education Organisation, KSEM 2009, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence No. 5914, 358-369 Sanchez R. (2004) Understanding competence-based management: Identifying and managing five modes of competence. Journal of Business Research 57, 5, 518± 532 Sampson D., Fytros, D. (2008) Competence Models in Technology-Enhanced Competence-Based Learning. In: Adelsberger, H.H., Kinshuk, Pawlowski, J.M., Sampson, D. (eds.): Handbook on Information Technologies for Education and Training,. 2nd edition, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg 155±177 Sandkuhl K., Tarasov V. (2009). Modelling Competence Demand for Flexible Supply Networks. In 13th IFAC symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing (pp. 103-108). IFAC TENCompetence (2009), TENCompetence - Building the European Network for Lifelong Competence Development, EU IST-TEL project, http://www.tencompetence.org/ Wang H-F. (1995) Wang C.H.: Modeling of optimal expansion of a fuzzy competence set, International Transactions in Operational Research, Vol. 5, No. 5413± 424 Yu P.L., Zhang D. (1990) A foundation for competence set analysis. Mathematical Social Sciences 20, 251±299 Yu P.L. (1991) Habitual Domains. Operations Research Nov/Dec 39(6), 869±876 Yu, P.L., Zhang, D. (1992) Optimal expansion of competence sets and decision support. Information Systems and Operational Research 30 (2), 68±85 =DLNLQ2)\áDZVNL$0DáDFKRZVNL% (2010), Competence based approach to intelligent human resource management, Proceedings of the 10th IFAC Workshop RQ,QWHOOLJHQW0DQXIDFWXULQJ6\VWHPV ,06¶ , Lisbon, Portugal Zulch G., Becker M. (2007) Computer-supported competence management: Evolution of industrial processes as life cycles of organizations, Computers in Industry archive, 58, 2, 143±150
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