Software Diffuses Demographic Time Bomb At Manufacturing Plants

San Francisco - The Works Software today announced software to address a key issue facing process manufacturing industry executives - the start of baby boomer retirements and how to stop the experience of operational staff walking out with them.

The baby boomer generation – 78m born between 1946 and 1964 in the US alone – began retiring this year with the pace set to continue over the next 25 years and more. The problem is exacerbated by not having enough younger workers to replace the retiring baby boomers.

Lifetrack solves two problems for the manufacturer. First, it captures and retains knowledge while operational staff work. Second, the database of experience allows new workers to come up to speed much more quickly - saving training dollars and increasing productive time.

"Today, knowledge retention programs don't provide anything for capturing tacit knowledge where it really exists in an organization – with operational staff at the ground level", says Dinesh Vadhia, CEO of The Works Software. "The trick is to capture, retain and share knowledge while staff are doing their job."

Designed in collaboration with operational staff, Lifetrack incorporates a model of how teams communicate and reuse experience efficiently. The result is a fast and easy way to store and exchange knowledge - within and between teams.

The model also drives Lifetrack's ergonomic design to deliver an intuitively easy-to-use interface customized to reflect each plant's environment. Lifetrack melds seamlessly into existing work processes so that staff are up and running quickly without any formal training.

"With Lifetrack, people are much more informed on this plant than they are on other plants. It has made a positive and demonstrable contribution to ensuring plant integrity, safety and stability," said Jon Bame, Operations Specialist at Innovene, Inc. "Lifetrack's strength is the availability of information between all layers of operations."

Additionally, retaining experience as it occurs means knowledge can be reused for continuous improvement and operational excellence. Lifetrack connects the experience and knowledge of the past to solve the problems of today and tomorrow – making it possible to do things better than the last time.

Manufacturers can insure against knowledge loss today with Lifetrack. "This is a critical period in which to save manufacturing wisdom before the knowledge loss impacts company performance", said Vadhia, "by which time, it really will be too late."

SOURCE: The Works Software