At a Glance
Retiring expertise is more than a staffing problem; it’s a reliability issue. It tests the internal backbone of your line, and you don’t want to be surprised by the effects. Consequences will silently creep in:
- Normalized Stoppages
- Settings Shift and Quality Dips
- Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) Lengthens
- Compliance Masks Reliability Decline
- Documentation Raises Upgrade Costs
These effects can be detrimental to the success of your line. In order to protect against them, take a look at our companion article: “How Do I Avoid Vendor Dependence? Building Operational Resilience”
Introduction
When one of your ace technicians announces their retirement, perhaps your first thought is panic – how are you going to replace them in this labor market? That’s a valid concern. But a quick second thought should be – how will my line respond?
Retiring expertise is a staffing concern, but it’s more so a reliability issue. It tests the strength of your line by removing one of your anchors. Do you have systems in place that cause the line to bounce back? Or will you see increased faults, degraded product quality, and vendor dependence?
In this article, we’ll cover:
- The key reliability areas that retirement affects
- How to recognize risks in your line
- How to limit the impact of retirements
- The backbone your line needs to retain for success
What Does Retirement Affect? The Silent Consequences
Retiring expertise often gets filed under “staffing.” And while it’s true that retirement is a staffing concern, it impacts much more than staffing alone. It’s really a reliability, ownership, and machine cost problem.
And a lot of operations don’t realize the effect it has, because the consequences move in silently. Here are some of the key silent consequences that come from retiring expertise:
1. Normalized Stoppages
Retired Skill: Pattern recognition and disciplined correction
Experienced technicians do much more than clear jams – that’s just the physical element you see. They also recognize patterns in stoppages, identify systemic issues, and fix faulty mechanisms. When expertise retires, this skill retires too.
Instead, your team begins to:
- Accept recurring, minor stops as “how the machine runs”
- Refer to failures vaguely (e.g. jam, fault, etc.) rather than in specific codes
- Forget preventive maintenance (PM) because of present line concerns
2. Settings Shift and Quality Dips
Retired Skill: Knowing the “why” behind specific settings
The settings on secondary packaging machines are as specific as your operation’s quality threshold. Glue temperature, compression timing, placement tolerances, etc. – these functions are all kept at specific settings to meet the quality your line demands.
When expertise retires, you lose the “why” behind these specific settings. Team members make slight adjustments, which eventually lead to quality dips in your final product.
- Adjustments are made under pressure, without documentation
- Knowledge gaps grow across the team
- Quality and performance become shift-dependent
For example, the minor change one team makes to glue temperature isn’t carried over to other shifts. Your quality becomes more variable, and no one knows why. All you know is that you have poor sealing, crushed cartons, out-of-place labels, and retailer chargebacks.
A Warning on Training Practices
The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies (PMMI) has highlighted the risk of shadowing-based training methods. What seems convenient at the time, turns out to be the source of tribal knowledge and gaps in understanding years down the line.
Without a clear, documented, training process, your line becomes dependent on the level of dedication and skill of retention between the trainer and the trainee.
3. Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) Lengthens
Retired Skill: Diagnostics and sequential troubleshooting
Modern packaging equipment combines logic in mechanical, pneumatic, and electrical systems (to only name a few). Within that, a single fault can arise from any number of places. Experienced technicians know how to diagnose issues, and the sequence for troubleshooting to take corrective action.
Without that skill:
- Sensors are replaced before root causes are isolated
- Cylinders and drives are swapped without validating failure sources
- Recurring faults become more frequent
Ultimately, every failure takes longer to diagnose and is often full of unnecessary parts swaps. That raises the cost of spare parts, lengthens the mean time to repair (MTTR), and erodes trust in machines and in team abilities overall.
4. Compliance Masks Reliability Decline
Retired Skill: Knowing which PM tasks are most valuable
As a necessary part of line compliance, all operations do PM checklists. But a completed compliance report that looks solid is not always conducive to a reliable and maintained machine.
When expertise retires, so does the knowledge of which compliance tasks are crucial to overall line reliability. So, while a team may be completing PM tasks, other critical areas can suffer.
Examples include:
- Rushed or misunderstood critical inspections
- Lubrication and alignment quality recedes
- Early wear signals get overlooked
5. Documentation Raises Upgrade Costs
Retired Skill: Version control and documentation discipline
Experienced technicians know to keep back-ups and manage version control, as well as to document changes, updates, and tweaks. When expertise retires, so does this discipline. With no one to own documentation, confusion shows up when it’s time to upgrade.
At first troubleshooting just takes longer, but once it becomes time to specify needs and settings, cross-operational confusion becomes a major barrier. Instead:
- Manufacturers must reverse-engineer your line
- Programmable logic controller (PLC) back-ups are out-of-date
- Electrical prints don’t match the machine’s reality
All of these results increase the cost of upgrades and machine purchases.
Where Do Retirement Effects Really Show Up?
The staffing report will show one employee retiring; the rest of these risks will show up in the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) of your line. You’ll see effects like:
- Increased contractor dependence
- Spare parts expedites
- More frequent service calls
- Recurring machine failures
- Lost product quality
- Reduced SKU flexibility
Many operations are already leaning on original equipment manufacturer (OEM) support, because the workforce market is difficult and automation is getting more complex.
Outsourcing to your OEM can be rational, but it doesn’t eliminate your responsibility. You have to tackle the systemic issues in your operation if you really want to support line growth.
If you don’t retain ownership while outsourcing, you’ll fall into a slippery cycle: Outsourcing leads to less internal exposure → which leads to less internal learning → which leads to more outsourcing, etc.
Want to Learn More About OEM Outsourcing?
If you’ve considered OEM outsourcing, learn how to support operational resilience with our companion article: “How Do I Avoid Vendor Dependence? Building Operational Resilience”
When outsourcing, it’s crucial that your line retains the three C’s: coverage, competence, and control. Make sure you understand your responsibility and know how to support the growth of your line.
How Do I Know If My Line Is Already at Risk?
To know if your line is already struggling, or will be struggling following a retirement, look for these key signals:
- Recurring stoppages without documented action
- Line success failing while PM compliance goals are met
- Lengthening MTTR and troubleshooting difficulties
- Cross-shift performance variability
- Setting adjustments without version control
- Missing or outdated documentation
- Contractor usage becomes a daily reliance
- Training tasks being given to inexperienced operators
While any one of these signs can’t immediately point to retirement as a risk, they are certainly the symptoms of shaken internal reliability.
How Can I Limit the Risk of Retiring Expertise?
Tools like embedded guidance (e.g. manuals and guide tablets), digital documentation, QR-linked troubleshooting, and improved training structures have proven effective at limiting the effects of retiring expertise.
But tools only go so far. At a foundational level, you need to retain line ownership – an internal backbone that protects your line from the impact of retiring expertise. We recommend you retain the following, at a minimum:
- Line-level technical ownership (e.g. version control, back-ups, settings, adjustments)
- The ability to effectively troubleshoot as a first response to unexpected events
- Protect and control line schedule, especially with maintenance
If your plant cannot safely stabilize the line, restore it to baseline, and document the learning, then you’re definitely at risk.
Protect Against Retirement: Build Unshakeable Reliability
You can’t and shouldn’t resist retirement – it’s an essential part of supporting your employees. However, you do need to budget and maintain knowledge with the same dedication as capital planning.
This means documenting changes, adhering to training curriculum, and sharing knowledge across shifts. Retiring expertise is not merely a staffing issue, it’s a reliability problem. If your line is only reliable because of the work of one person, you’re in a risky place. Know your line, know your team, and build the resilience that can withstand impactful retirements.
Looking for an OEM Who Will Facilitate Reliability?
Schedule a discovery call with Douglas. Our team of specialists will answer questions and walk you through equipment and support options, so you’re equipped to build a strong operational foundation.
