The starting point for designing comprehensive knowledge management is the assumption that knowledge has become or is becoming the dominant production factor in companies. This results in the need to understand knowledge as a controllable element, just like the classic operational production factors.

Therefore, knowledge management focuses on acquisition, representation, and distribution of knowledge. Knowledge management is the sum of all methods, measures, and systems used by an organization to develop knowledge, render it transparent, and provide it regardless of time, people, and location. The aim of knowledge management is to increase knowledge and to apply existing knowledge in the company in an optimal way.

The objective is to show what knowledge is available in the company and where.

ARIS support: The Knowledge map model type can be used to display the organizational distribution of different knowledge categories. It shows which organizational unit, position, or employee has expertise in certain knowledge categories, and at what level of competence.

The task is to analytically classify the intellectual capital of an organization, i.e., to describe the various types and groups of knowledge in order to design a knowledge storage structure, for example.

ARIS support: The knowledge structure diagram can be used to show how the knowledge base of an organization is divided into different knowledge categories and how these are further broken down into knowledge categories and documented knowledge. For documented knowledge, it is also possible to depict the information carriers storing the knowledge.

The task is to show where knowledge is generated, modified, and required in business processes so that the most efficient use of the knowledge resource can be determined.

ARIS support: The EPC, Process chain diagram, Office process, Industrial process, and Function allocation diagram model types provide the Knowledge category and Documented knowledge objects. The knowledge structure and the organizational distribution of knowledge can be described separately by means of the knowledge structure diagram and the knowledge map.