**2. Problem statement**

When completing projects, these engineers and experts typically accumulate domain knowledge and valued knowledge, but share little or no knowledge with others. In view of KM, these significant issues and experiences of construction engineers and experts are particularly valuable due to associated factors such as manpower, significant cost and time. The complicated nature of the construction industry makes it an important field for KM, particularly regarding knowledge gained from experienced engineers. Sharing knowledge between engineers can improve construction management during the construction phases of projects, thus helping avoid mistakes that past projects have already encountered. Transferring construction knowledge between projects can significantly contribute to achieving project objectives such as cost, schedule, quality and safety (Reuss and Tatum, 1993). Learning from experience, also, avoids problem-solving from scratch, i.e., problems that have already been solved need not be solved repeatedly. However, no effective platforms are available to assist engineers or experts in exchanging and sharing their knowhow and experiences when contractors execute construction projects. The inability to share the knowledge of engineers and experts represents a major loss for contractors in the construction industry.

The primary problems derived from the questionnaire survey of twenty junior and senior engineers from five participating construction building projects, in the sharing and exchanging of knowledge, specifically during the construction phase of projects, are as follows: (1) difficulty in determining which engineers and experts have helpful and relevant knowledge; (2) limited efficiency and quality when using only document-based media for knowledge management; (3) difficulty in finding engineers with relevant knowledge in similar projects; and (4) unease with illustrating knowledge in current commercial information management systems. Documenting and applying knowledge may avoid problem-solving from the outset, i.e., problems already solved need not be solved repeatedly. However, few suitable design platforms have been developed to assist engineers in illustrating and sharing their knowledge when needed. Although enterprises in the A/E/C industry have begun to collect and store explicit information in KM databases, they have not always been successful at retrieving and sharing tacit knowledge (Woo et al., 2004). Sharing and using previous tacit knowledge in construction projects is, therefore, the primary and significant challenge of this study.
