The retiring expert
At a Wisconsin printing company we work with, the person who runs billing has been doing it for almost 30 years. A lot of what she knows isn't written down anywhere. Which paper charge applies. How cartons bill differently when an order drop-ships. Which freight lines stay off the invoice. Dozens of rules like these, learned one job at a time, and most of them live in one person's head. When she retires, they go with her.
Since early this year we've been building AI that does the invoicing with her. When the tool gets an invoice wrong, she corrects it. We figure out why, write down the rule, and the tool knows how to handle it the next time. We started out automating invoices. Along the way, we've also been writing down 30 years of knowledge the company never had written down before.
We're hearing versions of this at other companies too. A food manufacturer recently told us about someone who has been there for 28 years. Their concern is that if she's ever out for an extended period, nobody is really ready to step in and do what she does.
I'm starting to think this is one of the more practical uses of AI for a lot of established businesses: capture what your most experienced people know while they're still there.
Curious how many other companies have started to deal with the same problem.