As a significant number of skilled workers approach retirement, Andreas Eschbach, CEO of eschbach, discusses how digital tools and AI can enable the transfer of tacit knowledge between old and new generations of plant workers before it is lost forever.
In just 50 years, the average European chemical plant has gone from a stripped back process line to a hive of high-tech sensors, detectors, and alarms, offering unrivalled visibility of every step of the manufacturing process.
However, as any plant manager can attest, these technologies pale in comparison to an experienced worker.
With decades of experience on the shop floor, veteran staff can ‘sniff out’ a fault or major incident before it shows any detectable signs. This makes them the best ‘sensor’ at a plant manager’s disposal.
However, many experienced workers will soon be leaving the industry. A Deloitte report in 2022 found that a staggering 25% of chemical industry workers were eligible to retire within the next five years, and this figure has likely grown since then.
This represents a major loss of both skills and knowledge, compounded by ongoing recruitment challenges at the other end of the age spectrum.
The European university system is struggling to produce enough graduates to fill skilled roles. And the UK Government’s jobs and skills dashboard puts the number of vacancies for chemical and related process operatives at 1,890, with almost half of these being hard-to-fill vacancies.
Moreover, the nature of the knowledge lost along with older workers – ‘tacit’ knowledge – is not so easily taught but gained over time though shopfloor experience.
This means that key skills are not necessarily being passed on. The result of this three-pronged challenge is a growing skills gap that threatens the future of the industry. So how can it be addressed?
Create an environment for success
Plant managers must set their site up as an environment that fosters communication and efficient knowledge transfer between junior and senior members of staff, regardless of shift patterns. At present, a major barrier is the way that knowledge is currently recorded, processed, and shared in chemical plants, with key data such as shift handovers and incident records often spread across a jumble of Excel sheets, handwritten logs, and operating systems.
This creates information silos and gaps in communication that are not conducive to the transfer of knowledge between plant workers, especially when operating on opposite shift patterns in a 24/7 chemical plant.
Given that knowledge transfer relies on effective communication, consolidating all plant communication – from shift handovers to task and event tracking, batch status, and critical insights – into a single holistic platform such as Shiftconnector®, is the best way to set your workers up for success. This allows previously disparate methods of communication to be condensed into a single source of truth, while also breaking down information silos.
For instance, its handover function standardises the way that key information is passed over between shifts, saving up to an hour a day, and allowing shift supervisors and operators to put their time into more impactful tasks, such as engaging with and mentoring junior colleagues.
Tasks can also be assigned directly to teams or individual members of staff, with a clear label of priority, while key information, such as morning meeting logs, can be flagged.
A plant status overview dashboard, with visual KPIs and instant access to key operational data, can help junior colleagues build out the big picture of how the site functions.
Perhaps most importantly, consolidating decades of shift records into a singular platform allows generations of knowledge to be accessed and leveraged.
For instance, one of the greatest challenges in a 24/7 plant is handing over mission-critical information from shift to shift, with potentially extreme ramifications if anything gets lost – an issue exacerbated by the risk of siloed information.
Thus, if quality deviation or another incident occurs on the watch of a more junior team member, access to all relevant shift information becomes even more important to achieve a swift resolution.
This is something that Shiftconnector® is looking to expedite through the power of AI, with its artificial manufacturing intelligence (SAMI) module spanning Search, Solutions, and Chat.
For instance, if a tank is being cleaned in preparation for the next product batch, and an operator recognises that there are still residues in the tank, they can input ‘product residues in tank’ or a similar query into the search process, with AI recognising related queries regardless of the choice of language or phrasing. Relevant information from past plant records will then be instantly presented back to the operator, allowing the root cause of the problem to be identified.
SAMI Solutions scours the plant’s shift logs for similar incidents and uses this data to suggest proven human solutions, such as switching to a different solvent. This includes full records of key information, such as when and where the solution was applied.
A Chat facility also offers a conversational interface, helping novice operators directly engage with their colleagues’ knowledge.
This approach is based on proven human solutions rather than generative AI, allowing tacit knowledge to be transferred between colleagues even if they have never crossed paths on the shop floor.
Digital platforms can help tear down common barriers to communication and transform the plant into an environment for learning and development, ensuring future generations are equipped to take on the responsibilities of their predecessors.
