What Happens When Your Most Experienced Employee Walks Out the Door?

Every manufacturer has them.

The employee who knows which supplier to call when you're in a bind. The machinist who remembers how that difficult part was made three years ago. The estimator who can look at a print and know exactly how long the job should take.

That experience is incredibly valuable.

It's also a business risk when the information lives only in someone's head.

Tribal Knowledge Has an Expiration Date

Experienced employees retire. People change jobs. Someone takes a vacation or calls in sick. When they leave, manufacturers can lose years of knowledge.

Suddenly, employees are searching through old paperwork, asking coworkers how something was done or rebuilding a process that already existed. New employees take longer to get up to speed because they're learning from people rather than from a repeatable system.

ERP software gives that knowledge a place to live.

Turn Experience Into Information Everyone Can Use

Think about everything your employees learn over the years. Which machines work best for certain jobs? How long does a setup really take? Which material does a customer typically order? What happened the last time you made this part?

When employees consistently capture this information in your ERP, it becomes part of the company's knowledge instead of one person's memory.

Job histories provide a record of what happened before. Routings document how parts should move through production. Work instructions help operators understand what needs to happen next. Purchasing, quality and costing records give employees information they can use without tracking down the person who remembers it.

Make Your Best Practices Repeatable

You can't download 30 years of manufacturing experience into a new employee. You can give them better information.

When your ERP contains accurate job histories, instructions, costs and production data, employees have a starting point based on how your company actually operates.

Experienced employees still bring enormous value. The difference is their knowledge can strengthen the entire organization instead of disappearing when they walk out the door.

Capture what your company knows today so your people can use it tomorrow.