| Abstract Scope |
Knowledge is essential to drive improvements in efficiency, sustainability, and performance. Three types of knowledge exist; conceptual, factual, and tacit. Conceptual and factual knowledge are codified, widely accessible through publications and databases. These do not describe the experience of how processes operate in practice. Tacit knowledge, by contrast, captures the "how" of production such as manufacturing high-purity aluminium. It resides with practitioners producing the product and in community networks, rather than documents. This network is enhanced by physical proximity, employment, skilled migration and interpersonal ties. Tacit knowledge underpins the economic viability of product and related downstream activities. It reduces when networks or economic activity are dispersed and is ‘forgotten' at a rate of 3-6% per month, behaving like a muscle, atrophying without continued use. Applying knowledge principes to aluminium production, including where the Industry has grown, diminished or ceased, demonstrates the importance of network architecture and connection to advancing innovation. |