BASSETTI helps SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC avoid Corporate Amnesia

The Context:
“We were facing the retirement of a colleague with unique expertise. With 25 years of experience in powder metallurgy, a great deal of field experience, knowledge of specific processes developed in-house, as well as a very creative mind, he was truly a cornerstone of our business. Unfortunately, this expert recorded very little of his knowledge. He felt valued and recognized for his competence and sharing it gave him the impression of putting himself in danger. This departure had the potential to jeopardize the future of the business since many of the historic records rested solely on his memory. Initially, we tried to create a partner for this expert to pass down his knowledge to, but in the end, this did not prove to be successful. In addition, we wanted to implement a tool that could capitalize on internal intelligence. In fact, the case of our departing expert was only one indication of the lack of knowledge capitalization of the organization. To do this, the whole team had to be committed to the process.
Eventually, other departures were to come and a new potential loss of knowledge could worsen the situation of the facility and jeopardize our performance. Thus, we also needed to quickly raise the competence of new arrivals. We wanted to take advantage of this renewal to drive a dynamic of change in which the capitalization of knowledge would take place.
We quickly realized that we would not be able to do it alone, not only because of a lack of resources but also because of a lack of skills. And then, in the face of our experts and their state of mind, neutral external actors would facilitate the change process.”

Why BASSETTI?
“We particularly appreciated the quality of the representatives from BASSETTI, for their technical and scientific knowledge and their ability to give the expert confidence. After having met with several other companies, it was our expert who made the selection. Furthermore, the tool proposed by BASSETTI, TEEXMA®, is both easy to use and flexible. It allows us to have permanent and multiple entry points to find what we wanted to capitalize on.”

An Effective Method:
“We have appointed someone internally to monitor the project. BASSETTI acted as a facilitator and applied their method, which proved to be relevant, based on interviews with the expert but also a diagnosis of the criticality of his departure, as well as the management of a transmission action plan. The knowledge collection was done in the presence of the project managers, which allowed our team to acquire the method and gradually become independent. The future replacement of the expert also participated and learned during the workshops. The expert’s knowledge was capitalized in a structured way within TEEXMA® as it was collected. Today, we continue to capitalize on it, long after the expert has left.”

A Positive Review:
“The capitalization of expert knowledge was successful and the integration of his replacement also proved to be a success. The team now operates with more flexibility. The culture of capitalization and knowledge sharing is being established and TEEXMA® has proven to become a great management tool. The tool is particularly interesting because it allows us to realize the connections between different concepts of our business and to directly capitalize on them. Finally, its simple scalability process allows us to extend the perimeter of the base to independently create an advancement of progress.”

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC is a global leader in energy management