Information evaluation practice: learning across aerospace and construction sectors

The management of information in aerospace and construction organizations is facing a challenge due to the ever-increasing volume of information needs to be dealt with. Current ICT systems have little or no regard to the value of the information they contain. As projects draw to a close, the team dismantles and some senior mangers even retire. These lead to a loss of high value knowledge. This paper addresses the problems of information overload and value in the aerospace and construction industries. Based on two exploratory studies on a major aerospace and a construction organization in the UK, major challenges in the current information evaluation practice were identified. Information is proved to be overloading and high value information is being lost from senior managers. Finally, a through-life Information Evaluation Methodology (IEM) is proposed to allow high value information to be easily retrievable in the future in order to support through-life knowledge and information management (KIM) practice.