The Operations Bridge

Every plant has one. The person who’s been there twenty years and just knows — which valve sticks, which supplier’s lots run hot, which sound means the bearing’s going. Incredibly valuable. Also, quietly, one of the biggest risks in the building.

The Single Point of Failure You Don’t Track

We track single points of failure obsessively for equipment — redundant pumps, backup generators, spare parts on the shelf. We rarely apply the same discipline to knowledge. If one person retiring, transferring, or calling in sick for a week could genuinely hurt your operation, that’s a single point of failure just as real as an unspared critical machine.

Why It Doesn’t Get Written Down

It’s rarely reluctance. Usually the expert doesn’t know what they know is special — it feels obvious to them, so it doesn’t occur to them to document it. The valve sticking isn’t a secret they’re guarding; it’s just background noise they stopped consciously noticing years ago.

Getting It Out of Their Head

1. Shadow, don’t interview. Asking “what do you know that isn’t written down” rarely surfaces anything. Watching them work and asking “why did you just do that” does.
2. Capture the exceptions, not the routine. The SOP already covers the normal case. What you’re really after is the list of “but if X happens, then…” that lives only in their head.
3. Have them train their own backup. Nothing surfaces hidden knowledge faster than watching someone try to teach it and getting stuck on a step they never had to explain before.

You can’t eliminate tribal knowledge entirely — experience will always outrun documentation somewhat. But the goal isn’t zero. It’s making sure the plant can survive that expert’s next vacation without a crisis.