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Knowledge Management – How to capture the knowledge and intellectual capital from retiring workers

An issue that continues to challenge the process industries and specifically the Oil & Gas and Chemical business is the “aging workforce” and how many engineers and plant reliability and maintenance professionals are estimated to retire in the next few years. Some recent headlines read “Nearly half of the aging workforce engaged in exploration and production activities will retire in less than a decade” (Dow Jones Newswire) and “As many as 40% of U.S. petroleum engineers currently employed will retire before 2014” (The Energists).

Industry associations like the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) have been warning members for years about this issue and urging them to have in place aggressive recruiting efforts to attract engineering graduates into the industry as well as a rigorous process and capturing and storing the intellectual knowledge and best practices before that knowledge walks out the front gate.

Some amazing and alarming statistics that really highlight the issue came out in the 2009 “Oil and Gas Collaboration Survey” where it was documented that the tools primarily used to retain the knowledge and intellectual capital from retiring workers were paper based documents/physical files (58%). And even more alarming was that of that 58%, almost a quarter of respondents reported that they were not asked to document anything about their processes or procedures until their exit interview!

There are three aspects of a complete Knowledge Management (KM) system: Human, Process and Technology. Do you have a process in place where your personnel document their processes, procedures and best practices? Now this may sound crazy or you’re saying “of course we do” but the available data, at least in the Oil & Gas industry, says many do not. Can you imagine 58% of your company’s knowledge on how to run your plant safely and efficiently is on a sheet of paper in a binder somewhere?

Second is the Process aspect of KM. If your people are required to document their processes, procedures and best practices- how often is that documentation reviewed and updated? Effective Knowledge Management requires a process in place for audit, review and inspection so you have a living, continually improving knowledge base.

Third is the Technology aspect of KM. If we have our Human and Process components of the system in place, the Technology aspect assures your processes, procedures and best practices are captured electronically, easily searchable and available across the enterprise. In today’s global marketplace, companies must have the technology in place to leverage processes, procedures and best practices at any site, anywhere in the world.

 

Tip provided by: Bob Francis - Vice President, Meridium

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