Knowledge Management System, or a KMS, is a concept usually tied to Information Technology that refers to a system for managing knowledge in companies for supporting the creation, acquisition, storage and dispersion of information.   It may or may not comprise, though not necessarily, and not solely, of a KMS initiative.  The main purpose of a KMS is to allow a company’s employees to readily access documented archives of facts, information sources, and results.  For instance, an engineer or chemist wants to examine the composition of a certain metal alloy that muffles the sound of gear systems.  This information, if shared throughout the organization can not only improve the design of the engines, but also pave the way for incoming ideas for better or new equipment.

A Knowledge Management System is usually defined as the creation of data stores, improving its access and distribution and even communication through means of collaboration, boosting the background and using that information as a possible asset for the organization or company.  KMS’s are valuable for organizations, because these grant organizations an advantageous position within competitive grounds, and effective workflow through use, reuse, and distribution of information within the workplace.  This also improves responsiveness, efficiency, competency, and innovation within the workplace.  Gathered data should be managed properly in order to cope with information overload, technological advances, competition, increased professional specialization, capitalization of the organization’s knowledge, and workforce mobility and turnovers.

Below are what can be considered a Knowledge Management System:

• Any AI based technologies that utilized a customized representation plan to show the problem domain.
• Specialized social computing tools, which can be used for a more natural approach to creating KM systems.
• Document based technology, or technology that allows the creation, management, and distribution of finished documents, e.g., Internet shared databases and Lotus Notes.
• Ontology or Taxonomy founded systems, comparable to document-based systems, although these are organized by a terminological system, or ontology, that is able to sum up the text such as this: Author, Subject and Organization, among other things, related to DAML and other XML based ontologies.
• Providing system maps of an organization that show the communication flow between individuals and entities.

Although KMS’s are based on information, it can also be applied outside the informational aspect of any organization. KMS’s are information systems that can be built upon, or make use of other information sources. KMS’s can exhibit these characteristics:

• Processes – They are created to improve and support data intensive functions, projects, or tasks of, for example, the creation, identification, acquisition, organization, structuring, visualization, distribution, storage, maintenance, revision, evolution, access, retrieval and application of information, or the facts life-cycle.
• Context – From another standpoint, KM systems view information as significantly organized information, collected and placed in a background of application and creation.
• Purpose – They should have a certain KM objective, such as partnership, or sharing good practices, etc.
• Instruments – Make use of KM equipment, for instance, creating, distributing and acquiring modifiable experience elements, creation of corporate information directories, taxonomies/ontologies, expertise locators,
• Participants – Users can take the role of involved, active participants in networks of KMS fostered communities, though not particularly common.  KMS systems are held to promote what is acquired on a collective basis, and that dissemination of facts lead to its continuous evolution, reorganization, and application in various backgrounds, by different users, from different experiences and bases.

The KMS provides integrated resources to satisfy the needs for KM amenities for different user networks, i.e. active data users, in knowledge intensive business procedures, all throughout the entire cycle.  KMS can be used for a variety of cooperative, collaborative, hierarchical, and adhocratic communities, online organizations, societies, and other online networks, managing media content; interactions, activities, work flow reasons; projects; departments, networks, works, roles, benefits, participants, and active users to create and extract new information, and to improve, leverage, and shift in new results of information that provide new services that use new interfaces and formats and different channels of communication.   The KM tools greatly help the purpose of Knowledge Management Systems by creation, acquisition, packaging, and use of information.  Some of these include mailing and search-retrieval systems that accomplish certain tasks and objectives within the organization.