Featuring the Hoosier Energy Customer Success Story
Current data shows that 50% of the current workforce in the power and utilities industry is nearing retirement within the next 5-10 years. As a consequence, the top three challenges this retirement wave is creating include:
- A skills gap is growing between the young employees, who may lack technical expertise, and the experienced workers they are replacing.
- A loss of valuable experience and insights, risking inefficiencies and errors without effective knowledge transfer. Retirees with regulatory expertise may leave gaps in compliance, increasing the risk of fines or operational disruptions.
- Inexperienced employees may cause delays in maintenance and repairs, raising the risk of operational outages and safety concerns. See the rates of non-fatal electrical injury for Utilities versus construction and all other industries.
This growing problem is forcing companies to consider how they may deal with a potential loss of critical knowledge and skill while delivering the same, if not better, services with fewer resources. Companies are embracing new technologies to address these challenges, but not yet at an enterprise level. Enterprises will need to boost their digital transformation strategies with technology that safeguards and transfers critical institutional knowledge from one generation to the next.
The retirement wave is prompting the power and utilities industry to innovate, invest in workforce development, and adapt to new technologies while addressing operational and business challenges. Engineering Document Management (EDM) systems can help address this retirement challenge by preserving institutional knowledge, ensuring continuity, and supporting smoother transitions as experienced workers retire. Here’s how:
Knowledge Preservation
74% of organizations have no formal process for facilitating knowledge transfer between individuals, so when employees leave or transition to different roles, knowledge is lost. Adept provides a single, centralized location where all engineering documents, designs, and technical specifications are stored. It can serve as a repository for established best practices, protocols, and guidelines, which can be accessed by current and new team members.
Our biggest motivation for Adept was people retiring. The loss of tribal knowledge, power plants, because their stuff was organized so chaotically, you had to know who touched the piece of equipment last, but to find that out, you have to find the right person. —Bernie Voges, Senior Protection Engineer, Hoosier Energy
With comprehensive searchability, team members can quickly find the information they need. This reduces the time spent searching for vital knowledge, ensuring that critical information is accessible when needed. Some say up to 2.5 hours per day, or roughly 30% of the workday [IDC]. Because Adept allows teams to store all project documents, revisions, and progress over time, it becomes a valuable resource for future projects or any knowledge transfer needs that arise.
Adept helps you find the right information at the right time from anywhere. If you’ve ever done a search in the search bar of Windows Explorer through 250,000 files, it's going to take you a minute or two or longer. With Adept, it takes seconds to find exactly what you need.
—Bernie Voges, Senior Protection Engineer, Hoosier Energy
A Gartner study on the benefits of digital transformation in utilities estimated that companies that adopt better document management and knowledge-sharing systems, like Adept, can reduce downtime by up to 15% to 30%. This is particularly valuable in industries like power and utilities, where downtime can cost companies thousands or even millions of dollars per hour, depending on the scale.
Knowledge Transfer
Loss of tribal knowledge impacts both operational and informational roles. In engineering environments, much of this tribal knowledge can be found in drawings and other informational documents which have accumulated over the years. But a 2018 PwC survey found that 60% of companies reported difficulties in managing knowledge transfer as older employees retired, and many said they lacked systems to capture tacit knowledge. EDM systems provide a structured and efficient way to share, preserve, and track knowledge across an organization. Adept centralizes critical documents, designs, and operational data, ensuring knowledge is not lost when employees retire. Retiring employees can document processes and best practices within the system, making it easier for younger workers to learn and adapt. Training materials and manuals can be included and distributed efficiently. This facilitates smoother transitions between team members, departments, and projects, making knowledge transfer more effective.
We were able to capture tribal knowledge in a centralized file structure in Adept. We instituted best sharing practices first within one design group and then at different sites across the company. One place to go for all documents no matter where you are in the company.—Bernie Voges, Senior Protection Engineer, Hoosier Energy
Operational Continuity
When key employees leave, the resulting gaps in knowledge and services can threaten both operational and fiscal stability of an organization. Vacancies disrupt established routines and may delay critical projects. The process of finding replacements pulls time and energy away from other priorities, and if the vacancy persists, the business may turn to contractors to cover the role. Additionally, the remaining staff may be required to take on additional responsibilities, train new employees, or come up with creative solutions — all of which take away from other essential tasks. Engineering document management software can significantly help mitigate these challenges by streamlining the management of important documents, processes, and communications.
A significant portion of the design work carried out by utilities is repetitive in nature, making it ideal for the use of design templates. One study indicates that standard design templates can handle up to 80% of the design engineering workload. By developing best practices based on standardized designs for specific tasks and formalizing these as replicable templates for the engineering department, utilities can reduce their reliance on a dwindling pool of skilled engineering talent.
Inexperience can also lead to a rise in change orders, which can significantly add to a project’s total budget, often 10-15%. For smaller utilities, this may add anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 to the annual budget; for larger utilities, change orders can cost more than $1,000,000 annually, depending on the volume of work and the frequency of changes to projects.
A contractor in charge of all the ‘demo stuff’ went on site, and based on his print, ripped out all of the equipment. A second contractor enters the same site, reads his print and re-installs conduit cables. Next day, the first contractor returns, sees the cables and stuff, and thinks he's missed something from the day before. So, he rips everything out again.”—Bernie Voges, Senior Protection Engineer, Hoosier Energy
By providing a central repository for engineering documents, Adept can reduce disruptions, ensuring that new employees can access up-to-date information and guidance. With remote access to documents, employees can troubleshoot and solve problems in the field. Routine tasks like document approvals and updates can be automated, freeing employees to focus on higher-value work and reducing reliance on senior workers for daily operations.
A report from PwC suggests that companies adopting a centralized document management system experience an average 15% to 20% increase in operational efficiency. In power and utilities companies, this increase in efficiency often translates to savings in maintenance, operations, and project execution costs. If you were to avoid a single outage caused by the decision-making of an inexperienced worker, a lack of tribal knowledge capture, or poor document control, Adept pays for itself in less than one hour.
Adept also plays a crucial role in maintaining the integrity, accessibility, and compliance of documents within engineering organizations. Specifically, it can store compliance-related documents, manage audit trails, and support regulatory adherence, all of which are key to reducing the risk of non-compliance. It helps ensure that younger employees—who may not have years of experience with regulatory requirements—can easily access the information, understand the process, and follow regulations. Smart workflows guide inexperienced workers through the necessary steps to ensure compliance. Automated alerts and reminders can prompt users to complete critical compliance steps on time, reducing the chances of missing essential actions.
Forrester Research highlights the potential for reducing errors and rework—by as much as 50%—when organizations adopt more efficient document management systems like Adept. This improvement not only helps in saving time, resources, and money, but also mitigates the risks associated with human error (especially from inexperienced workers), which can be particularly costly in sectors where safety and compliance are top priorities.
In summary, EDM systems help bridge the generational gap by preserving knowledge, improving collaboration, ensuring compliance, and supporting smoother transitions as the workforce ages. Digital tools and automation like Adept can help mitigate the skills gap without the costly investment in training, infrastructure, and time.
