Courses in industrial engineering and management offer fertile terrain for learning and creating new knowledge, facilitating practical research that enriches the lives of students and of the wider research community.

“My article (which was published in REJ and can be read here), written in collaboration with my colleagues Prof. Irit Hadar from the University of Haifa and Dr. Itzhik Aviv from Tel Aviv University, expands on the doctoral thesis of Dr. Itzhak Aviv, which was written at the University of Haifa under the supervision of Prof. Irit Hadar and myself, and dealt with analyzing and defining requirements for knowledge management systems,” says Dr. Meira Levy, a professor at the School of Industrial Engineering & Management at Shenkar and the author of the article.

“Over the years, the theoretical model was expanded and an agile layer was added to it; this allows for iteratively assessing organizations, progressively enlisting interested parties, proving the feasibility of knowledge management in the context of a specific business process and expanding its validation and implementation across the organization.”

The article was published in the peer-reviewed journal Sustainability, and it examines the new model in light of case studies learned in “Aspects of Knowledge Management in the Industry”, a course taught as part of the master’s degree of the School of Industrial Engineering & Management at Shenkar.

“The beauty of this model lies in its multidisciplinary relevance for software requirements engineering in general and sustainability processes in particular,” Levy explains. “Sustainability processes require sharing knowledge and progressively integrating regulation into institutions and organizations. Investigating these processes in light of our suggested model can promote the absolutely necessary agenda of expanding sustainability partners in organizations and countries with varied cultures and practices, which often requires overcoming resistance and opposing interests.

The article is just one example of many that address the need to share knowledge and collaborate between disciplines—in this case, between software requirements engineering and sustainability. Many studies today encourage similar collaborations: for example, between requirements engineering and visual communications.