Plenary Lecture
Managing Knowledge Transfer in International Business Collaboration Projects
Professor Ahmed Al-Ashaab
Manufacturing Department
School of Aerospace
&
Transport and Manufacturing
Cranfield University
E-mail: a.al-ashaab@cranfield.ac.uk
Abstract: For developing countries, knowledge and technology transfer are seen as a road toward economic development, and as a driving force in building a good industrial sectors. In turn, it will enhance the social and the economic development of the country. This will be achieved via the involvement in international business collaboration projects. There are many international collaboration projects that are going one between developing and developed counties. This led to a number of newly industrialised countries, for example; Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Korea and Turkey. This could not be achieved without the knowledge transfer in term of skills, technology and infrastructure. However, there are no clear process and approach to support the right knowledge transfer in such international project. This presentation is the research work that is going on that aims to develop a framework that will support aerospace knowledge transfer from developed countries to developing countries in terms of skills, technology and infrastructure. This is to support the demands of the growing aerospace sector and encourage international collaborations. In turn, it will enhance social and economic situation of the developing countries.
Brief Biography of the Speaker: Dr. Al-Ashaab is Reader in Lean Product Development at the Manufacturing Department of Cranfield University. He is leading the LeanPPD Research Group at Cranfield University. He is the academic lead of the Manufacturing research community. He was the technical coordinator of the LeanPPD European project. Dr. Al-Ashaab has been an active researcher in the areas of lean product development, concurrent engineering, knowledge-based engineering, knowledge management and performance measurement. His research projects have a strong focus on industrial applications. The research carrier started after he obtained his PhD from Loughborough University in 1994. He then worked at ITESM Campus Monterrey in Mexico from 1994 to 2000 where 50% of his time was spent working with Mexican Industry in applied research. At Cranfield University, He is the Course director of MSc program on Knowledge Management for Innovation. He has 23 years of teaching experience in Mexico, Colombia, France and UK. Dr Ahmed Al-Ashaab is the author/co-author of more than 60 research papers published in major international journals and internationally refereed conferences. He has supervised over 70 Masters and Doctoral theses. Dr. Al-Ashaab is a member of the ISPE Board and the organisation committee of the CE20xx series of conferences. He has been an active peer reviewer for EPSRC, and several international journals. He has been collaborating with many companies such as Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Visteon, JLR, VW, Sitech, Indesit, MOOG, Caltec, CEMEX, Paxton and GETRAG.