As part of operative processing, knowledge is to be managed via the provision of goods and services. Of importance is the availability and systematic supply of the necessary knowledge to these processes. Aside from this purely operative perspective, other aspects concerning process design and management of organisational knowledge are relevant.

The application area, project, involves two aspects. An ex-post analysis of experiences from completed projects takes place and is used in succeeding projects. In this respect, project know-how is recycled while at the same time company knowledge is successively enriched. Besides this, mechanisms for the general exchange of knowledge within a common project in a distributed environment will be addressed.

As part of the EKM project, decentralised alliances in the form of virtual companies will be analysed. Such intra-organisational and inter-organisational virtual enterprises are characterised by the overlapping combination of core competencies along the entire value-added chain. The issues considered by the EKM can therefore stem from various business functions such as e.g. logistics, controlling, marketing, procurement, production and R&D.

In addition to creating a conceptual solution to the described problem, an objective of the EKM is to design a prototype which can demonstrate the implementation of the project results. A methodology handbook will also be made available which provides the partners specific instructions on how to apply the project results in their firm.