How To Keep Your Factory From Forgetting How To Run

BusinessManufacturingHow To Keep Your Factory From Forgetting How To RunByEthan Karp,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about transforming businesses through technology & innovation.Follow AuthorMay 26, 2026, 08:11am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.A new MAGNET report on managing manufacturing’s multigenerational workforce makes the risk plain: institutional knowledge is one of the most valuable assets on the shop floor, and too much of it still lives in the heads of people nearing retirement.gettyA factory can lose its memory overnight.Sometimes it happens after the retirement cake when a 38-year employee walks out for the last time. The line still runs the next morning, until it doesn’t. A machine starts making the wrong sound. A customer rejects a shipment over a requirement no one wrote down. The person who knew all of this is now gone. In manufacturing, knowledge loss does not stay theoretical for long. It shows up in downtime, scrap, missed shipments and calls from customers who expected the company to know better.Manufacturers have always depended on people who carry the real operating system in their heads. They know which machine hates summer humidity. They know which supplier causes trouble during peak season. They know the workaround that keeps a legacy line moving when the manual is useless.This invaluable knowledge gets built over decades. Much of it now sits with workers who are nearing the end of their careers. Census Bureau research shows how quickly that reality has moved into the plant: the share of manufacturing employees working at companies where at least a quarter of the workforce is 55 or older rose from 14% in 2000 to more than 40% in 2022. And in a Manufacturing Institute survey, 97% of manufacturers expressed concern about brain drain from the aging workforce.A new MAGNET report on managing man...