How do we protect knowledge held by one winder or die setter?

Get him to train a chosen junior, capture the routine set-ups as pictures with a line of text under each, and reward the training in his grade. Begin this month, while he is still content. That is the answer in three moves. The harder part is getting a proud senior hand to share what took him twenty years, and getting a junior to absorb it while the line is running.

At a pump maker, the senior winder judges turns per coil, wire gauge, slot insulation and lacing by feel. He knows which supplier's laminations need a firmer slot wedge, and which enamelled copper drum kinks. He can tell from the smell at the baking oven door whether the varnish has cured. At an irrigation maker, the die setter centres the extruder die and mandrel so the pipe wall comes out even all round. He sets the sizing sleeve, nudges haul-off speed against ovality, and widens the die gap a touch when a fresh granule lot behaves differently. At an implement shop, the quench hand reads a ploughshare's glow, cherry or straw, before it hits the oil.

Very little of this is written down. Most of it the expert has never had to put into words.

Station or machine: for example, stator winding bench two, or the drip lateral extruder.
Holder: whoever alone can manage it unaided.
Set-ups only he does: list each, such as a new stator frame size, or swapping to a heavier-walled lateral.
Faults only he can fix: such as a hot spot on test, or an oval pipe after a granule change.
Judgements he makes by eye, ear or touch: write what he says he looks for, in his words.
Chosen learner: name, current level, shift.
Target date for the learner to do the commonest set-up alone.

Fill one sheet per station with the holder sitting beside you. Ask what spoils when a stranger attempts it. Whatever he names becomes the teaching list.

1. 1

   Choose the learner with the holder

   He must be willing to work with that person. A learner forced on him will be kept at arm's length.

2. 2

   Fix paired shifts on real work

   For several weeks the learner joins every set-up at that bench or die. He watches first, then does it with the holder watching.

3. 3

   Photograph the common set-ups

   Six to ten photos per set-up with one line under each, laminated and tied to the machine guard. The holder checks every line.

4. 4

   Record the tricky judgements as checks

   Where the holder says he simply feels it, find a check that shows it. On a stator, use a growler and a megger reading. On pipe, take wall readings at fixed lengths. On a quenched edge, run a file across it.

5. 5

   Test the learner alone

   He does a full set-up while the holder stays away, then the quality hand, or the test bay, judges what he produced.

6. 6

   Enter the pass on the cover sheet

   Update the skill matrix so cover is visible to the plant head.

The pump makers' winding and training page covers a winder apprenticeship in more depth. For extruder hands, see the irrigation makers' training page, which sets out written start-up routines and photographed mould fixes.

• Fear of being replaceable. Make teaching a higher grade, not a step toward the exit, and say so to the whole bay at tea.
• No time on the line. Plan paired shifts into the production plan, especially in the slack months, rather than hoping teaching happens between jobs.
• Pride in the craft. Ask him to write the steps in his own words and print his name on the laminated card.
• A learner who does not stay. Choose someone rooted locally, whose wage rises once he clears the unaided trial.

What if he is about to retire? Begin at once, and offer him a season as a part-time trainer after he retires. Plenty of old hands like the idea. What if he flatly refuses? A refusal tends to hide a grievance over money or respect, so ask him plainly which one. What if two people already know half each? Pair them, so each learns the other's half.

Tour the bays alongside your production head. At every machine ask who can set it up from cold. Wherever one name comes back, write the station down. That list is your risk register. Our overview of people practice at pump, drip and implement works places it alongside seasonal hiring and pay. To turn those names into teaching plans, look at how we approach skill-building programmes.