Your experienced expert: an asset, or a bottleneck?

What most companies do

Most production companies work like this: experienced operators solve problems, new operators shadow them and pick things up along the way. Procedures live in SharePoint or a shared folder. And when something genuinely complicated happens, you call the expert. 

That approach works. Until it doesn’t.

Your hidden problem

So what if your expert is suddenly out for three weeks on holiday? A breakdown that normally takes 20 minutes now takes four hours. Because nobody else knows where to start. 

Or worse: he retires. Every pattern he recognises, every decision he makes intuitively — it all walks out the door with him. And you’re left to deal with the consequences. 

We call this problem hidden dependency. You don’t notice it as long as everything runs normally. You only notice it when it’s too late. And then you’re left with only two options: 

1. Trial and error by other operators (costs time, increases risk) 
2. Escalating to an external specialist (expensive, slow) 

Neither option is acceptable when you have deadlines and a client waiting. 

It’s not about the expert, it’s about their knowledge

The problem isn’t with your experts. It’s a good thing you have them. The problem is that their unique knowledge is not captured or made available. Their expertise is far more layered than a simple work instruction: 

Layer 1: Procedures

Every expert knows the procedures. “Set the temperature to 180°C.” “Check the pressure every 30 minutes.” Most companies have documented this somewhere.

Layer 2: Decision logic

Almost no company has documented the second layer: the decision logic. “If you hear this sound at this temperature, it’s caused by air pockets in the line.” “With raw material from supplier A, you need to set it 5 degrees higher than with supplier B.” 

This is the knowledge that separates a junior operator from a senior one. It’s not in the procedures. It’s in their head. 

Layer 3: Pattern recognition

The third layer is rarely captured either. This is pattern recognition: seeing a combination of signals and immediately knowing what’s going on. “The machine is running 0.2 seconds slower, the temperature is stable, but the end product has a colour deviation. It’s wear on roller 3.” This knowledge isn’t in any procedure. You learn it by going through it hundreds of times. 

In short: the most essential process knowledge (layers 2 and 3) lives only in the head of the expert. And that makes every expert a potential bottleneck. 

How this plays out in practice 

At JDE Joure, part of JDE Peet’s and producer of Douwe Egberts coffee among others, they encountered this problem in the Liquid Packaging department. This is where a liquid coffee solution for the hospitality industry is packaged. 

Team leader Raymond van Dijk: “When a breakdown or problem occurred, operators weren’t always able to resolve it on their own. A few highly experienced operators do have the required knowledge, as do the team leaders and the production manager. As a result, they were regularly overwhelmed when problems came up.” 

The cost of hidden dependency (that you’re already paying)

Dependency costs money, in all kinds of ways. 

In time
How many hours a week does your best operator spend answering the same questions? Explaining how things work? Solving problems nobody else can handle? Those are hours he isn’t spending on producing or optimising. 

In growth
How many orders have you already had to turn down because you don’t have enough people who can work independently? How many growth opportunities are slipping by because training simply takes too long? 

In risk
What does one hour of downtime cost you? And how many hours of downtime are you risking if your expert unexpectedly drops out?  

The solution: capture your experts’ knowledge

JDE Joure decided to use ELICIT to capture the knowledge of their experts. Through interviews, all knowledge layers were recorded and made accessible to colleagues via a knowledge system. An operator now knows exactly which “levers” they are allowed to adjust, at what moment, and which tasks they can hand off to the Technical Service team. 

Jan Jonker, operator with over 30 years of experience: “Colleagues can now troubleshoot much more independently. When I used to show the old system to a new operator, that was difficult. But in ELICIT Online you can click on a specific component and immediately see the relevant information.” 

The result? Raymond van Dijk: “Where’s the biggest win? Fewer questions and shorter downtimes. We arrive at solutions faster and see fewer quality deviations. The unplanned stops are significantly shorter. We’re able to resolve problems earlier, which means the major, lengthy breakdowns occur less often.” 

“Colleagues can now troubleshoot much more independently. When I used to show the old system to a new operator, that was difficult. But in ELICIT Online you can click on a specific component and immediately see the relevant information.” 

Jan Jonker, operator with over 30 years of experience

Signs that it’s time to act 

Do you recognise at least two of these signs on your shop floor? Then you’re dealing with hidden dependency too.

1. Your new operators still can’t handle deviations independently after months
   They can follow the standard procedure, but the moment something deviates, they have to wait for a senior. They don’t know when they’re allowed to step off the procedure, which parameters are critical, or how to prioritise when multiple warnings come in at once. 
2. Your best operators are constantly interrupted with the same questions
   “How do I fix this?” “What does this error message mean?” Your experts give the same explanation to different people every week and never get to the work you actually need them for: optimising, improving, solving complex problems. 
3. Breakdowns take longer when certain people aren’t around
   A problem that normally takes 20 minutes suddenly takes two hours. Nobody knows where to start. Or operators try everything, which actually makes the problem worse or causes quality deviations. 
4. You can’t handle orders or growth because you can’t train people fast enough
   Every new production line or extra shift means new people. But who trains them? Your experienced operators are already stretched thin. And even if you make the time, it takes months before someone can work independently. Growth is limited by training capacity. 
5. You see quality deviations that get picked up too late
   Junior operators can tell something’s off, but they don’t recognise what it means. They wait until the problem gets bigger or call for help too late. Where an experienced operator would have stepped in at the first signs, production continues running with deviations. 

Are you too dependent on your experienced expert? 

We’d be happy to tell you how to get ahead of the risks. Schedule an introductory call and discuss your situation. No obligations, just a relaxed conversation about what fits your production process.