Integration of Knowledge Management Approach to the Planning Stage of Freight Villages

Abstract

Freight village (FV) is a logistics phenomenon with broad economic, social and environmental consequences. A well organized and knowledge-based planning process is critical to realize sustainable development of FVs, due to its capability to avoid negative phenomena (e.g., unnecessary FV projects, high vacancy rates, unsuitable sites, disturbance to local residents, air and water pollutions) from the beginning. Sustainability-oriented FV planning depends largely on the identification, interpretation, creation and use of involved knowledge. Knowledge management (KM) is a planned, structured approach of systematically and actively managing knowledge for achieving the expected objectives. Thus, this paper aims at integrating KM approach to FVs planning stage for sustainable development. This paper starts with the research background. Then, it proposes a schema for FVs planning steps towards sustainable development. In particular, “sense-making KM model” is used as a guide for FVs planning process following the route: sense making - knowledge creation - decision making.