Your most experienced technician announces they’re retiring. You saw it coming, but the reality of what your team is about to lose still feels crushing. That technician’s hard-won knowledge about workaround fixes and unwritten procedures is about to walk out the door.
According to our 2026 State of Industrial Maintenance report, which is based on a survey of 2,234 maintenance and operations leaders across the U.S. and Canada, the problem of knowledge loss is getting worse:
- 32% of leaders called out “skills gaps” as a challenge preventing them from improving their maintenance programs, making it the second-most cited challenge after budget.
- Poor knowledge transfer or training climbed up the list of top drivers of unplanned downtime compared to previous years.
And the impact of knowledge loss isn’t only felt when a technician retires. It’s felt every time a repair stalls because the person who knows the answer isn’t on shift. Or when a multi-site team solves the same problem five different ways because no one documented the best fix (at least not where everyone could find it).
Urgency around the knowledge transfer problem is growing, but what are maintenance and operations teams doing about it? We spoke with leaders at four companies who prioritized tackling the problem.
Michaels Stores: Capturing expertise before technicians retire
The challenge
When you’re the leading arts and crafts retailer in North America, slowing down isn’t an option. Mike Truitt, Director of DC Network Facilities at Michaels Stores, knew this, and he lost sleep over one specific factor that could easily stall his team’s productivity.
“One of the things that keeps me up at night is the tribal knowledge in our network leaving,” Mike explains. “The average age of our technicians is 45, so this is something we’re acting on now.”
When knowledge was captured, it was inconsistent. Each distribution center had its own methods for naming parts, logging work, and tracking performance. This made it hard to learn from one site’s experience at another.
What they did about it
Michaels focused on building a culture of documentation. They implemented MaintainX, which had a mobile-first interface that made it realistic for technicians to capture detailed information while they worked, rather than trying to remember it later at a desktop.
Mike also standardized workflows across all seven sites, so knowledge captured at one location could be applied everywhere.
To reinforce this culture, Mike created the Golden Wrench Award. This program recognizes technicians who consistently contribute high-quality data to the CMMS. This has turned documentation into a point of pride for the team.
Autowash: Sharing operational knowledge across 26 locations
The challenge
Autowash has grown to 26 car wash locations across Colorado’s Front Range. As the business expanded, sharing knowledge about best practices became more challenging. If a technician at one site figured out a better way to fix a pump, that new process generally stayed with that person or team.
“In the old times, we were going off people’s word and what they had in their heads, so we were never really moving forward because people would come and go,” says Richard McLamb, Autowash’s senior area manager.
Technician availability also hindered the troubleshooting process. When a technician encountered an unfamiliar repair, they had to call someone more experienced and wait for a response. If that person was busy, the repair stalled.
What they did about it
Autowash uploaded equipment manuals, guides, and asset-specific resources into MaintainX, then used MaintainX AI to make that documentation instantly consultable. So instead of reading a 200-page manual to find an answer, technicians could ask a question and get guidance in seconds.
“MaintainX AI excites us because it allows the guys to learn from manuals and resources that they need to read but never actually want to read,” says Erin Dreeszen, Autowash’s founder and owner. “I’ve seen it as a way to pull back the curtain and share knowledge.”
The system also made it easier for technicians to communicate and document any breakthroughs they might discover during a repair. Now, a fix one technician finds at one location is accessible to every technician across the network.
Magnera: Creating a team-wide knowledge library
The challenge
At Magnera’s manufacturing facility in Asheville, North Carolina, maintenance planner Matt Harbin faced a problem: the team wasn’t able to share knowledge consistently.
When technicians found problems mid-PM, they might jot down details on paper, talk about what they found after the fact, or simply forget. And when parts had no clear documentation, finding the right one could take longer than a repair.
What they did
Magnera made MaintainX the place where all maintenance knowledge lives, including procedures, photos, videos, step-by-step instructions, and comments tied to assets and work orders. The expectation now is that everything is documented in real time, so the team can communicate mid-PM rather than debriefing after the fact.
“I run into a lot of parts where there’s no nomenclature, no anything,” Matt says. “But if I know what machine the part goes to, I can go back to the work order. And if we documented everything properly, I can get that information again. So I use MaintainX as a library.”
Though the facility lost several skilled technicians after implementation, they maintained the same output; the documentation culture meant the departing technicians’ knowledge was already in the system.
A shared strategy
These companies operate in different industries and at different scales, but all of them solved the same problem by building systems and cultures that allowed technicians to capture knowledge as a natural byproduct of work and access that knowledge wherever they need it.
Book a demo to see how MaintainX can help your team get ahead of knowledge loss.
Senior Content Writer, MaintainX
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