By 2025, nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population is expected to be 60 years of age or older. With this demographic preparing to exit the workforce and enter retirement, what can be done to retain their knowledge and pass it down to the next generation of employees? After all, a good portion of the knowledge that our “employee elders” possess is not written down or stored within a computer—it’s stored in their heads. And this is especially true within the manufacturing sector.

A term first coined within the Six Sigma community, tribal knowledge is described as knowledge that is known, yet undocumented. It can consist of decades worth of valuable information and hands-on experiences, and losing this knowledge can be damaging to any organization.

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