In almost every company there is one person everyone asks about everything. They know which machine plays up on Mondays, which customer accepts part deliveries and where the tool nobody can find is kept. When they're around, everything works.
When they go on holiday, operations carry on. Just more slowly, with more phone calls and with decisions waiting for them to come back.
The person who knows
Nobody hid this knowledge. It built up over years, in conversations, on bits of paper on the wall and in memory. The weekly plan is made by feel, because they are the one with the feel for it.
The risk isn't in what they know. It's that nobody else does.
What it costs
There is no number in the calculator for this, and we won't make one up. But the cost almost always shows up in the same three places.
- 01
Idle capacity
Machines and shifts waiting on a decision that only one person knows how to make.
- 02
Rework
The same job done a different way, because the instructions weren't written down.
- 03
Dependency
One resignation, one sick leave or one long holiday, and operations slow down.
Why nobody writes it down
Because there is no time, and because writing procedures feels like red tape. Useful knowledge is rarely in a manual. It's in the record of what happens, shift by shift, and in the history of each problem and how it was solved.
An operation that only works when one person is in isn't an operation. It's a dependency.
That record isn't written afterwards. Either it gets done as things happen, or it doesn't get done.
How to measure it
Run the holiday test. For one week, note every time someone has to ask a specific person something before they can carry on working: who was asked, about what and how long they waited for the answer.
Three questions to ask this week
- 1Which operational decisions can only one person make?
- 2Where is this week's plan, and who can change it?
- 3When a problem comes back, where is it recorded how it was solved last time?
If the answers always point to the same name, you already know where to start.
What changes
When the plan, the instructions and the record of every work order are in one place, the person who knows everything is no longer the only one who knows. They're still the best at deciding, but operations no longer stop when they're away.
It's also the quickest way to bring someone new on board: instead of weeks shadowing the right person, there is a history to look things up in.
Written by
Lourenço Barros · Account Management
Follows up after go-live, which is when you see whether it worked.
