Supporting innovation through knowledge management in the extended enterprise

Managing of knowledge for innovation in an extended enterprise (EE) environment is a key issue. This in turn requires effective utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT). This chapter addresses the application of ICT for knowledge management (KM) needed for innovation in industry. An ICT-based KM system to support innovation process in EE environment (i.e., to support mastering of the innovation process) is presented. The main objective of the new AIM system is to provide the means of stimulating the creation of innovative ideas in general, and specifically on potential product/process improvements and on problem solving. The AIM system supports collection of such ideas throughout EE from people involved with the products and processes, as well as a development of the collected ideas into innovations.