Overview

In the introduction to the April 1995 issue of Maintenance Technology , editor Bob Baldwin (1995) identifies a concern about the knowledge drain occurring in many companies as senior employees leave the workplace. From his participation in maintenance seminars and roundtables, it appears that many of these persons are first-line supervisors who are among the few people that really understand the machinery in the plant. Baldwin states that Maintenance planners are in the best position to stop the knowledge drain. Baldwin holds that The smart planner taps into the collective knowledge of maintenance and reliability people wherever he finds them and institutionalizes that knowledge in the planning process.

Indeed, many companies initiate planning primarily to capture knowledge as supervisors near retirement. It is interesting that the knowledge in danger of being lost is not the 20 or 30 key lessons or experiences of the past 20 years. Rather, it is the thousands upon thousands of minute details of particular jobs on particular equipment. It is the knowledge that a certain fan must have its bearing removed from the inboard side because of an imperceptible taper not mentioned in the technical manual. It is the identification of the only gasket material found to hold up for the fuel oil control valve, no. 8 flange connection. It is the specific maintenance detail that makes the difference between a 4-hour job and a 10-hour job for countless maintenance tasks. It is the ability to capture this information and apply it to...