Author: Paul Van Metre
Tribal knowledge can be a killer. For a smaller, stable company not on a growth path, it probably isn’t the worst thing ever – unless you lose one of your long-term employees who is the only one that knows how to do a lot of things.
Dynamic, high-growth companies routinely addnew customers, more employees, and knowledge bases. Locking processes and procedures in the brains (and only the brains) of employees costs valuable insights if employees leave. It is also a major barrier to growing quickly in a sustainable way.
There are a few key steps that can be taken to eliminate or significantly mitigate tribal knowledge. We practiced these in our machine shop, Pro CNC for over 17 years and it allowed us to grow at 30%-100% a year for many years.
1. Eliminate Paper Job Travelers
Throw out the paper processes by making all work instructions digital. Empower employees on the shop floor to update and augment work instructions with text, photos, videos and more (please include a review and approval process). You’ll be amazed at the level of detail that will grow and the richness of the data that will develop.
This will allow people to download what they know about specific jobs out of their heads and share it with less experienced employees. Once this culture is established, it flourishes and makes great strides to eliminate tribal knowledge. Virtually anyone with basic skills can successfully set up complicated jobs.
2. Catalog, Organize All Productivity Tools
Having people work out of their tool boxes with non-company owned tooling, or non-organized company tooling can be a major problem. Cutting tools, shop aids, gages, inspection equipment, or any other critical tool must be standardized. Otherwise, you create riskier environments on your shop floor.
Non-calibrated and traceable equipment is a major problem for quality. Shop aides which go missing when an employee leaves or is out sick can cause big issues for set-up times and throughput. Non-standard cutting tools can wreak havoc on set-up times, throughput, quality, and eventually delivery performance.
All jobs should have a well-defined BOM of controlled items that are prepared in advance of a job getting set up. If an employee has a piece of equipment that the company doesn’t own, that can be just fine. Attach an equipment number, calibrate/control it and receive official sign-off from the employee and the company on where to properly store the tool.
3. Catalog, Organize Purchased Items
Every piece of hardware comes with an established supplier relationship. Tools, consumables, maintenance items, and related materials must come from approved vendors. Those supplier relationships include details about prices, lead times, catalog numbers, internally generated part numbers, etc. Standardized supply documentation means employees who make future purchases understand how to record orders and keep product flowing.
Nothing is worse for shop throughput than a missing purchasing agent and undocumented processes. Also develop a standardized way to submit purchase requests so data flowing into purchasing can be as smooth as possible.
4. Develop Proper Storage Systems
Develop storage systems for everything – fixtures, tools, consumables, raw material – all of it. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard of companies who have tanked on the success of a job – both profit, and on-time delivery – because they couldn’t find the fixtures or tools they needed to do that job.
There is no excuse for losing track of an important fixture when the solution of storing it in a logical place is so easy. If you see employees walking around looking for things, this is a red flag that you have a problem in this area.
5. All-in-One Software, Eliminate Tribal Knowledge
There are lots of other things that can be done to eliminate tribal knowledge but this is a great start. These types of organizational steps can be implemented with little cost in Excel, Google Docs or some other free or inexpensive system.
Some ERP and MES systems may also have these features. Our product ProShop certainly handles all of this in a 100% paperless and web based system. I’d love to hear your thoughts or discuss how we can help your shop improve.