pls help me...this is knowledge and innovation management... and it is urgent!! i will give a good rate and like the answer pls hurrry thank you very much!!

Question 1 Irizar Company Background Irizar is an associated work co-operative belonging to Spain's Mondragon Co-operative Corporation (the MCC). The MCC can be considered as the world leader in co-operative working. It is made up of more than 100 co-operatives of associated businesses and employs over 42,000 workers. Irizar is a firm devoted to the assembly of luxury coaches. It has seen spectacular growth over the last few years, especially noteworthy has been its growth in average productivity of 18.4% in the 1993-2000 period. The firm currently has 634 workers in its Ormaiztegui factory in the Spanish Basque country). It exports to 45 countries and has shareholdings in five other companies: Irizar Tianjin (35%): Irizar Maghreb (34%); Irizar Brasil (100%); Irizar Mexico (100%) and International Hispacold (65%). It assembles six coaches every day and has a 33% share in the Spanish market with a further ten companies sharing the rest. Within its sector, it ranks first in Spain and third in Europe. Sales of luxury coaches in the European market are around 10,000 units/year, but only seven companies sell more than 600 units/year. Furthermore, the sector is strongly concentrated as a result of agreements between the bodywork and chassis makers for both coaches and trucks (Mercedes, Volvo and Scania). Irizar can be considered as an innovator in products, processes and in general management, where it is successful in its field. For the Economist Intelligence Unit, Irizar is probably now the most efficient coach builder in the world'. The knowledge management strategy implementation began at Irizar in 1991, a moment in which the firm was in a critical situation, having accumulated major losses almost to the point of bankruptcy. Given the situation, the new management decided, with the support of all the workers, to carry out an emergency plan. This involved changing the strategy of the firm, diversifying markets in order to succeed in a global market and focusing only on the assembly of luxury coaches (they had previously produced urban buses also). The implementation process was supported through a global change focused on the building of a strong culture, in which all the members of the organisation were to be involved this led to the definition of the process as a project based on people. The firm's management tried to encourage the acceptance throughout the organisation of some cultural principles-these have been reinforced over time. Implementation of the knowledge Management (KM) strategy The process of implementation of the KM Strategy Establishing Irizar's KM strategy involved an evolution, through a series of phases which were aimed at the continuous generation of innovation. The process started in 1991. Year 1991-1992: Dissemination of the ideas for change. A distribution of the ideas contained in the firm's mission and values was carried out, with the participation of all workers. This mainly involved the attempt to transmit to the whole organisation the importance of knowledge as a strategic resource and the development of innovation. Year 1993-1994: Establishing the firm's strategic positioning. Once the ideas had been disseminated, a start was made on applying systems for the storage and sharing of experience and knowledge, with the active participation of the majority of the workers. The company set the strategic objective of doubling production volume to two coaches per day. To do this, an internationalisation strategy was adopted with the aim of expanding sales in countries such as Germany, France and the UK. This phase saw the obtaining of specific improvements in quality and productivity, considered to be basic requirements of competitiveness. The effort made to obtain ISO 9001 quality certification should be emphasised; Irizar was the first European luxury coach-maker to obtain this qualification Year 19941997: Radical changes in the organisation. A strategic reflection period' took place in this year, which gave rise to the introduction of a reengineering model. The model involved a redesign of processes, and changes to the vertical and horizontal organisation charts: all work was to be organised Question 1 (Continued) in multi-disciplinary teams, with wide autonomy and limited supervision. The work teams periodically set objectives relating to productivity, quality, compliance with customer deadlines and other operative improvements. The strategy has made it possible to achieve compatibility between incremental changes and radical improvements in a re-engineering model. KM and innovation came to form part of the company's strategic objectives. Use of knowledge storage and distribution systems (such as databases) was generalised and major improvements were obtained at the operational level, together with significant increases in all the sales, profitability and efficiency indicators. This has continued since then. From 1995, Irizar adopted the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) Model for Excellence, based on participation, innovation and learning. This serves as a model for the detection of improvement opportunities via overall external evaluations and detailed self-evaluation. The efforts made at the company over this period have been recognised by the receipt of a number of national and international awards. Customers were generally satisfied with the quality of Irizar's coaches, they seemed to repeat orders from Irizar. Year 1998-2000: Expansion of Irizar and recognition of its work Starting in 1998, Irizar created a business group, comprising Irizar S. Coop, with its headquarters in Spain, Irizar Tianjin (China), Irizar Magreb (Morocco), Irizar Brazil and Irizar Mexico, with a shareholding in International Hispacold, all to be able to service the growing demand in these markets. At the same time, a systematic application of KM was put in place to establish a continuous improvement process and ensure results in the creation phases and application of the new knowledge. The achievements obtained were major, radical improvements, the development of innovations and the creation of new knowledge. The company has been in this position since 1994. The company's work in this period was recognised by the winning of numerous prizes and awards, including ISO 14001 certification for the Environmental Management system and the maximum EFQM qualification, among others. To reach the levels proposed by the model, different systems, practices and tools were used, related to the strategy and core features and surrounding conditions of the firm. One of the most important of these was organisation of the work into teams. From year 2000 onwards, Irizar's profit level had improved significantly, it had annual revenue of US$200 million in year 2000 and sales for each product also increased Adapted from Forcadell, FJ & Guadamillas, F 2002, 'A Case Study on the implementation of a Knowledge Management Strategy Oriented to Innovation', Knowledge and Process Management vol. 9, no. 3. pp. 162-171. Required: (a) Discuss FIVE (5) reasons that Irizar needs to implement a proper Knowledge Management (KM) system (20 marks) (b) Using the Balanced Scorecard framework, evaluate the overall effectiveness of Irizar's implementation of the knowledge management system. (20 marks) [Total: 40 marks)