What is legacy knowledge?
In manufacturing and maintenance, where expertise is built in the field rather than in a classroom, a company's greatest asset isn’t just its technology - it’s the knowledge held by its people. This hard-earned, experience-based wisdom is known as legacy knowledge.
It’s the accumulated insight of workers who have spent years, sometimes decades, troubleshooting, optimising, and refining best practices on the job. The challenge? Legacy knowledge often exists exclusively in the minds of experienced workers, making it difficult to access, share, and preserve insights for everyone else.
The risk of lost expertise
Sustainability-oriented manufacturers and maintenance organisations - solar, wind, heat pumps, battery tech, EV -all rely on a skilled workers to install, maintain, and optimise complex systems. But the growing skills gap is a challenge facing the entire sector. By 2030, it’s reported that 26 million new workers will be needed globally to meet net zero demand. Andy Lane of BP put it best: “We’re likely to run out of people before we run out of money for the green transition.”
A technician working on renewable infrastructure may have encountered a rare but critical issue in extreme weather conditions, learning the most efficient way to resolve it through trial and error. An experienced equipment installer might know exactly how to adjust an installation process to maximise efficiency in a particular climate. These insights, gained through years of hands-on experience, are invaluable.
But what happens when those workers retire, switch jobs, or leave the field?
Without a way to capture and redistribute this knowledge, businesses risk losing it entirely. Training new workers becomes harder, troubleshooting takes longer, and efficiency declines. Instead of benefiting from the cumulative wisdom of their workforce, companies are forced to relearn hard lessons repeatedly.
The AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Index 2024 survey found that 83% of industrial leaders were concerned that their teams lacked access to the data they needed to make the best decisions. Compounding the issue, domain experts are retiring faster than they can be replaced, and younger workers entering the workforce have different expectations, including a preference for remote or hybrid working.
Where traditional knowledge-sharing falls short
Most organisations rely on manuals, training sessions, and internal documentation to transfer knowledge. But these methods have limitations:
Difficult to document: Not all expertise is easily written down, especially real-time problem-solving skills.
Time-consuming: Workers in the field don’t have time to sift through lengthy documents or training videos.
Static and outdated: Traditional knowledge-sharing methods struggle to keep up with evolving challenges.
Further impacting effective service delivery is wasted time.
DocuSign’s 2-24 Digital Maturity Report highlighted that “An average of two days a week are wasted on manual, low-value tasks carried out by workers [...] costing businesses over £275 million in lost productivity” each year. This means that of the expertise businesses do have in-house, it’s frequently not put to best use. Inefficiency of operations isn’t just impacting the business—it’s also creating employee dissatisfaction, with anywhere up to 41% considering leaving their roles due to “outdated processes inhibiting their daily work.”
The good news is, people are open to evolution. An independent survey by Intoware of 1,030 UK-based industrial firms found that when it came to passing on critical skills and expertise from ageing workers to the next generation, nearly three-quarters (74%) saw digital tools as playing a valuable part in sharing knowledge. In response to this challenge, 60% of firms said they intended to invest in data skills, training, and development to bridge the skills gap.
How Lorefully bridges the gap
This is where Lorefully comes in.
Lorefully gives organisations a way to capture and redistribute irreplaceable worker knowledge before it’s lost. Powered by bespoke generative AI, Lorefully offers an intuitive messenger interface that requires zero training to use, making it the ultimate field-based problem-solving assistant.
Here’s how it works:
Workers interact with Lorefully just like they would a trusted mentor, asking complex questions and getting real-time, experience-driven answers.
The system pulls insights from the collective wisdom of the entire workforce, offering suggested courses of action based on past experiences and best practices.
Instead of relying on outdated manuals or trial-and-error, workers get instant, relevant solutions tailored to their specific challenge.
A smarter future for makers and fixers
In a fast-moving industry focused on achieving strict global net zero goals, efficiency, safety, and knowledge continuity are essential. Legacy knowledge isn’t just important, it’s the key to innovation and long-term success. By transforming workplace wisdom into a shared, accessible resource, Lorefully ensures that every worker, whether new or experienced, benefits from the knowledge of those who came before them.
At a time when skilled worker shortages and workforce transitions are at an all-time high, companies can’t afford to lose their most valuable resource: the expertise of their people. With Lorefully, businesses don’t just capture legacy knowledge, they make it work for them, today and into the future.
The value of knowing where to hit 👀
A humorous example of the value of expertise is the parable of the experienced engineer, who retires only to be hired back as a consultant when the ‘Big Machine’ breaks down a few weeks later. When no-one can get it working again, the engineer walks into the plant, takes a look, grabs a hammer, and gives the machine a single well-placed whack. The machine starts right up.
When the engineer sends a bill for £5,000, the manager complains that the cost is too high and demands an itemised invoice. The engineer replies:
Hammer: £5
Knowing where to hit: £4,995
With Lorefully, companies can ensure that their most valuable expertise isn’t lost, but instead, used to drive smarter decision-making and continuous improvement company-wide.
Early access now open. Email us to arrange an introduction: hello@lorefully.com
