Utility knowledge capture for a retiring workforce: crews hear the expert's own answer, cited to the second and approved for use
Crews hear the expert’s own answer, in seconds, long after the expert has retired.
See one case, screen by screen ↓The senior substation engineer, the line foreman and the lead process operator carry the things nobody wrote down: the quirk of a 1971 switchboard, the autumn week the lake turns over, the tie you never close while a farm's generator is running. When a crew gets stuck, they ring that person, often at home at six in the morning. At Lumina Utilities' Harrowgate Lane primary, the switching procedure SP-HGL-07 (rev C, 1998) leaves out one step the old board needs. Five times since 2012 the programme stopped at that step; in April 2024, with the expert on leave, the T1 work was cancelled and 1,860 customers were off 3 h 40 min longer.
Many utilities already record exit interviews and walk-throughs, but nobody can find the 40 seconds that matter at 06:24 on a switching morning. Lumina had 31 h 47 min of recordings from 14 retiring experts. And without a list of critical tasks known by one person, interviews follow the expert's memory, not the risk: 37 critical tasks had no usable written method, and 11 were known by one person only.
Estimated split for one senior expert with about eight sessions, in working days, by hand and with the solution. Recording time stays the same; the expert's and the owner's review stays with people.
Six specialist agents turn each recorded session into signed know-how and answer crews with the expert’s own clip; the expert signs, a knowledge owner approves.
Tuesday 13 October 2026, Harrowgate Lane 33/11 kV primary substation. Priya Natarajan and craftsman Callum Reid are running switching programme SW-2026-1187 to release transformer T1 for maintenance, 06:00 to 14:00. Section B, 2,940 customers, stays on through bus section BS-1. At step 14 the interlock key will not come out of key exchange box KX-2. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Priya has four years' service. She types “Harrowgate Lane, key won’t come out of KX-2 after opening BS-1”. The live job sits above the question: programme SW-2026-1187, step 14 of 31, T1 out for maintenance, 2,940 customers on supply through BS-1. Under it, the steps of how the answer is being found tick through.
“Answer finder · searched 335 signed items and 31 h 47 min of sessions · 3 matches · best: Desmond Okoye, session 3, 23:41”
The answer leads with a 40-second clip of Desmond Okoye, senior protection and substation engineer, 38 years, from his Harrowgate Lane walk-through on 14 Aug 2026, 23:41 to 24:21. The transcript lights word by word as it plays, and the whole interview runs down the right, scrolled to the moment. Priya can hear 20 seconds either side or open the session.
“So you never force it. Open the mechanism door on panel four, charge the spring by hand, eleven strokes on the lever.”
Step 1 is quoted from Lumina's safety rules, §5.3: stop, do not force the key or work round the interlock. Step 2 cites SP-HGL-07 step 14. Step 3, charge BS-1's closing spring by hand, 11 strokes, until the flag shows yellow, CHARGED, cites Desmond at 24:04 and as-built drawing HGL-E-114 sheet 3, note 6. Step 4 adds the Arlen VR-11 manual: charging the spring does not close the breaker.
“Approved for use by Samuel Achebe, protection engineering, on 2 Sep 2026. Change CR-2026-0418 to SP-HGL-07 is open with Teresa Vance, network standards.”
The past-jobs strip shows every time the KX-2 key stuck: 25 min with Desmond on site in 2012, then 1 h 50, 2 h 30 and 2 h 10 waiting for him on the phone, and abandoned in April 2024. Today the key is out at 06:41. Priya rates the answer right, and her note goes on the know-how item's record.
“Rated right · your note “11 strokes exactly” is added to K-0311’s record”
Hannah Lowry recorded session 3 with Desmond at the 11 kV board: 1 h 38 min, 27 pieces of know-how, 25 signed by Desmond. Every mark on the timeline is tied to the second it was said. In the margin beside 23:41 sits item K-0311, “KX-2 key trapped: charge BS-1’s closing spring by hand (11 strokes) first”, signed and approved, and flagged as not in SP-HGL-07.
Desmond, 24:29: “Me. Ray did, he’s gone. The lads ring me. Ring me at home, mostly at six in the morning.”
Fourteen people with 20 years or more leave in the next 18 months, seven in electricity and seven in water. Each bar runs from today to their last day, with the share of their critical tasks already recorded and signed. Desmond leaves on 27 Nov at 78 %, 18 of 23. Elaine Marsh, control room shift manager, is at 13 %; four people have nothing recorded yet.
“We have 45 days of Desmond left. I need the questions that matter, not 9 hours of reminiscing.”
Read from 14 years of work orders, the procedure library and every recorded session, the gaps list ranks critical tasks with no usable written method by risk. Two are known by Desmond only, both at Holt Bridge: a trapped bus-section key, 3 jobs since 2015 with no note, and T2's tap changer hunting in a cold snap, 6 jobs where the notes just say “adjusted”.
The gap finder ranks tasks, never people, and takes leaving dates only from the HR leaving plan.
Desmond's Holt Bridge walk-through is on Thu 15 Oct at 09:30, 90 minutes. The guide asks whether the Arlen spring check there is also 11 strokes and which side the lever is, what “adjusted” means on the T2 tap changer, and who should learn Holt Bridge from him. It lists the walk-through route and what to film: the spring lever, all strokes, and the flag colour.
The planner drafts; Hannah edits the guide and sends it. The planner never contacts the expert.
Six items wait for a signature, two of them differing from a written procedure. Each shows what the expert said beside the wording crews will get, and the check against the procedures. Margit Hollander's filter 6 item says run to waste for 14 minutes after a burst main upstream, where KR-OP-09 §3 sets 10, so the procedure owner decides as well as the knowledge owner.
“If the expert’s step isn’t in the procedure, I want to see that before a crew does.”
The same know-how, seen by the five people around it — the crew on site, the expert who is leaving, the capture lead, the knowledge owner and a water operator.
Six specialist agents turn each recorded session into signed know-how and answer crews with the expert’s own clip; the expert signs, a knowledge owner approves.
Turns each recorded session into a transcript with speaker turns and word timestamps, in English and Arabic, and marks site noise and anything inaudible.
Finds each piece of know-how — when this, do that, because — with the exact words and seconds it came from, and checks it against the written procedures: covered, matching or different.
Links each item to the assets, drawings, procedures, past work orders and customer generation it is about.
Answers a crew's question with the expert's clip first, cut to whole sentences, then numbered steps that each cite a timestamp or a document with revision and page; says when a step is not in the procedure and who approved it.
Finds critical tasks with many jobs, no usable written method and few people who have done them, and ranks them by risk and the last person's leaving date.
Drafts each session's questions, walk-through route and shot list from the gaps and the alarm log, for the capture lead to edit and send.
Approves what crews hear. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any site, task or expert, or say what to do next. Answers come with the clip, the timestamp and the procedure.
What else did Desmond say about Harrowgate Lane that is not in a procedure?
Six things, all from session 3 on 14 Aug: the KX-2 key needs BS-1's spring charged first (approved, CR-2026-0418 open); check T2 is under 18 MVA before releasing T1; panel 7's earth switch hasp is reversed, so lock it from the back; battery charger alarms under 8 °C are the cold, so check the heater; the cable trench floods past 40 mm of rain in leaf fall (waiting for his signature); and when control loses the site, switch on the panel flags (he edited the wording). Only the first touches switching, so only it needed a procedure change.
Which critical tasks will nobody know after 27 November?
Two tasks are known by Desmond only: G-01, releasing a trapped key at the Holt Bridge board, 3 jobs since 2015, 20 % recorded; and G-03, Holt Bridge T2 tap changer hunting in a cold snap, 6 jobs where the notes say “adjusted”, 0 % recorded. Both are in the guide for session 7 at Holt Bridge on Thu 15 Oct. Two more are shared with Keith Ramsay, who leaves 30 Jun 2027.
Draft more questions for Desmond’s Holt Bridge session
Three more, each from a gap or his alarm record: what the old relays need for the 2027 Crossmere pilot-wire tests that the test sheet leaves out; how to change over the DC by hand if the Holt Bridge charger fails; and which Holt Bridge alarms he treats as nuisance, and which never — 41 % of 1,206 acknowledgements in 2026 were his. Hannah sends the guide; Desmond is never contacted directly.
Send the KX-2 step to the procedure owner as a change to SP-HGL-07
Done. Added to change CR-2026-0418 for Teresa Vance, network standards, with Desmond's 40-second clip and transcript, drawing HGL-E-114 sheet 3 note 6, Samuel Achebe's approval of 2 Sep 2026 and the five past jobs, including the programme abandoned in April 2024. Until SP-HGL-07 changes, the answer keeps its “Not in the written procedure” mark.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Who signs, how clips are cut, what counts as a conflict and how long the voice is kept are settings. Changes are saved as a new version and logged.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| The expert signs their own words first | On | No item answers a crew until the person who said it has read and signed it |
| Knowledge owners | 5 owners | Substations: Samuel Achebe · Water treatment: Ruth Mbeki · Overhead lines: Gareth Lyle · Cables: Nadia Petrov · Network control: Martin Osei |
| Reminder when a signature waits | After 10 days | To the expert, copied to the capture lead |
| Clip length | 20 to 60 s | Cut to the sentence, never mid-word · transcript always shown beside the clip · crews can hear 20 s either side |
| Switching, isolation and earthing steps | On | Need a procedure citation or the knowledge owner's approval, marked “Not in the written procedure” until the change is made · a procedure change opens automatically, with the clip attached |
| Languages | English, Arabic | Transcripts and answers in English and Arabic; the clip stays in the expert's own language |
| Keep the voice | 10 years after the last day | Transcript and items kept for the life of the asset · recorded consent per session · the expert can withdraw any clip |
| Who is on the leaving plan | Last day within 18 months, at least 20 years' service | From the HR leaving plan · also anyone who is the only person to have done a critical task, from the gaps |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the pilot; the 1 h 50 to 2 h 30 waits are the demo utility's past jobs · “estimated” = our estimate of the working-days split · “typical” = published figures (T&D World, utility workforce crisis: 45 % of lineworkers retirement-eligible within 10 years · AWWA 2025: 21 % of water utility staff within 5 years · CEWD via APPA: 56 % of the energy workforce under 10 years' service). Lumina Utilities and the people, sites, assets, procedures and records named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software that keeps what retiring engineers, lineworkers and operators know, and gives it back to crews when they need it. Expert Knowledge Capture turns recorded interviews and site walk-throughs into signed, cited know-how, and answers a crew's question with a clip of the expert explaining it, the steps and the procedure beside it.
Each session is transcribed with a timestamp on every word. The know-how extractor finds each “when this, do that, because” with the seconds it came from and checks it against the written procedures, and the linker ties it to the asset, drawing and past jobs. The expert signs their own words and a knowledge owner approves it; only then can the answer finder use it.
Start from the risk, not the expert's memory. The gaps list shows critical tasks with no usable written method and who knows them, the leaving timeline shows who leaves when, and the interview planner drafts each session's questions, walk-through route and what to film from the gaps. The capture lead edits and sends the guide.
Not from a clip alone. A switching, isolation or earthing step needs a procedure citation or the knowledge owner's approval, and a step the procedure leaves out is marked “Not in the written procedure” with the approver and the open change request. Safety steps are quoted from the safety rules word for word, and the authorised person on site decides what to do.
Yes. In the working solution half the leaving plan is in water: a lead process operator at a treatment works, a sludge treatment operator, a pumping station technician, a reservoir and dam safety engineer. One answer gives operators the trigger for raising permanganate before the autumn lake turnover, approved by the water treatment knowledge owner.
The answer stays when the expert retires, signed and cited. The design targets are about 15 minutes to the senior engineer's answer on a rare event, against the 1 h 50 to 2 h 30 the sample utility's crews waited by the phone, and a 30 % shorter time to competence for a new authorised person, both measured in the pilot.
Yes. The expert signs their own words and can withdraw any clip, which leaves every answer the same minute. A named knowledge owner approves each item for use, the procedure owner decides on procedure changes, and the agents never contact experts, never change a procedure and never rank people.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your procedure library, safety rules, work order history, HR leaving plan and a few recorded sessions — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own recordings first.
We'll run Expert Knowledge Capture on a sample of your own recorded sessions, procedures and work orders.