Expertise transfer: A case study about knowledge retention at airbus

Every time an engineer retires or takes up a new job with another company, there is the risk of losing relevant expertise. In their professional life, highly qualified employees have acquired significant knowledge, e.g. about products, suppliers, processes and customer relationships. This often unique expertise may be lost for good.To address this situation and retain valuable know-how for further use, Airbus has developed the Expertise Transfer approach. For two years this approach has been successfully applied in more than 100 cases, and this not only for employees leaving the company but partly also for those moving to another department. The approach has proven useful not only in the transfer from one person to another but also from one group to another. The paper describes the Expertise Transfer approach and how it is being used to transfer knowledge and experience in a targeted, structured and efficient way. A detailed case study illustrates how valuable knowledge could be saved for the benefit of Airbus. In a qualitative and quantitative evaluation the satisfaction of the participants is analysed. The success criteria are explained and a recommendation for the approach is given.