USE CASE
The knowledge is leaving, and writing it all down is not a plan
Every plant has two or three people who know things nobody wrote down: which fitting leaks first, which way the cam has to face, what the machine sounds like a week before the bearing goes. They are retiring faster than they are being replaced, and the usual response — commission a documentation project — almost never finishes. The alternative is to capture the knowledge where it applies, in pieces, while the work is happening.
What is tribal knowledge, actually?
Tribal knowledge is the operating knowledge of a plant that exists only in people, transmitted by working alongside them. What matters is that almost all of it is knowledge about a specific place on a specific machine, which is why it resists being written into a general document.
Identification
“The one that leaks is the third fitting, not the one you’d assume.” Requires pointing — a description is longer and less certain than the pointing.
Sequence
“That guard has to come off before you can lift the cover.” Only learned by hitting the obstruction.
Setting
“On this format it sits just past the second mark.” Lives as a hand position, not as a number.
Failure signature
“When it ticks like that on start-up you have about a week.” Pattern recognition built over years. Hard to phrase, easy to show.
History
“That housing has been rebuilt twice; it runs hot because of the 2019 repair.” The reason is in an event nobody recorded.
Workaround
“The gauge reads two low; the real value is the one on the panel.” Half the plant knows it and nobody has ever needed to say it out loud.
Notice what all six have in common: each one attaches to a place you could put a finger on.
Why does “let’s document everything before they retire” fail?
Because it is one enormous unstructured task with no natural first step, assigned to the busiest people in the building, producing nothing visible until it is nearly finished. The scope is infinite, the output is general while the knowledge is specific, and it competes with production, and loses. The alternative is to change the unit of work. Capturing knowledge in place — one note, one photo, one short video, one annotation at the spot on the machine, while the job that surfaced it is being done — is a small task that happens many times. It has an obvious first step, it is done by the person who has the knowledge at the moment they are using it, and it is useful from the first entry rather than at the end of a project.
Isn’t this what 3D capture of the plant is for?
Partly — and the distinction is worth being precise about, because two quite different things are sold under similar language. One kind of capture is building-scale: a walkthrough of a facility, useful for as-built documentation, layout and planning, and showing a remote colleague what the space looks like. Maintenance knowledge lives a scale below that.
Unit
Building-scale walkthrough: the space — a floor, a site, an area. MYREX: the machine, and the exact spots on it.
Question it answers
Building-scale walkthrough: what is here, and where is it. MYREX: how is this done, on this equipment, at this spot.
Resolution that matters
Building-scale walkthrough: enough to recognize the asset. MYREX: enough to tell two identical fittings apart.
Where the knowledge accumulates
Building-scale walkthrough: usually a separate document or ticket system. MYREX: on the location itself — every photo, note and previous job at that spot.
What the technician does with it
Building-scale walkthrough: looks at it. MYREX: works in it — procedures in guided mode, work orders, completion records.
A capture you only look at is a reference. Knowledge stays captured when the capture is also the place the work happens — because then recording something is a step in the job rather than an extra task after it.
What does a new technician actually need?
Not a course. On their second week they need to answer, standing at a machine, at speed: which part is this, has it been touched before, and what is the right way to do the thing I have been sent to do.
Which component this is
The point on the machine’s 3D capture, with the photos and notes pinned to it.
Whether this spot has a history
Marks — pinned locations on the machine — hold everything ever recorded there; the asset page holds the full activity history.
The right way to do this job
A step-by-step procedure run in guided mode, with the capture of the machine alongside it.
What the expert would have said
The note, photo or short video the expert pinned at that spot when they last did the job.
Who to tell when something is wrong
Raised from the 3D scene: it creates a work order and drops a mark at the exact position, in one action.
The test worth applying after a month: give a technician who has never worked that machine a routine job on it, and see whether they can find what they need without finding a person.
How do we capture what the retiring expert knows, without a project?
Walk the machines with them, and capture at the spots. The structure that makes the task finite is the equipment itself: the machine has a fixed number of places worth talking about, so “walk me through this line and stop wherever you would warn someone” is a task with an end, unlike “write down what you know”.
Start with the machines that cause arguments
The equipment everyone already asks the same person about. That is where the concentration of unrecorded knowledge is highest.
Capture at the point, not in a document
A photo of the correct position, a thirty-second video of the awkward motion, a note about what the noise means, pinned where it applies.
Do it during real work
Knowledge surfaces when a job surfaces it. The best moment to record why that bearing runs hot is while someone is standing at the bearing.
Let the record build itself
Completed work writes to the asset’s activity history and to a tamper-evident audit log, so the history of a spot accumulates without anyone maintaining it.
Check it with a newcomer
The person who does not already know is the reliable test of whether a step is followable.
What actually ships today?
High-definition 3D capture of each machine
Shipped
Photos, video and notes pinned to exact locations on the machine
Shipped
Step-by-step guided mode
Shipped
Abnormality tags raised on the 3D scene, carrying the exact location
Shipped
Asset pages with full activity history
Shipped
Work orders — create, assign, complete
Shipped
Report-a-problem escalation
Shipped
Media library
Shipped
Search across assets, marks, media, procedures, procedure steps and activity
Shipped
Audit log, secured by a SHA-256 hash chain
Shipped
Attestation on completed work
Shipped
Microsoft Entra sign-in
Shipped
Per-step location anchoring of procedures
In development
Spanish (LatAm)
In development
If it is not in the table, this page is not claiming it. Ask us about anything you need that is not listed rather than assuming it is there — MYREX has no training, competency, certification or LMS layer: no course assignment, no competency matrix, no training records, no sign-off that a person is qualified on an asset.
Frequently asked
How do we capture tribal knowledge before our experts retire?
Not as a documentation project. Capture it in place: walk the equipment with the people who know it and pin what they say to the spots it applies to — a photo of the correct position, a short video of the motion, a note about what the noise means — and keep capturing during real work afterwards. The unit of work is one note at one location, which is a task that gets done, unlike writing a manual.
What is tribal knowledge in manufacturing?
The operating knowledge of a plant that exists only in the people who work there and is passed on by working alongside them. In maintenance it is overwhelmingly knowledge about specific places on specific machines — which fitting, which sequence, which setting, what that sound means.
How is this different from a 3D walkthrough of our facility?
A facility walkthrough answers questions about the space: what is in this area, how is it laid out, what does it look like. Maintenance knowledge is a scale smaller — which of the identical fittings, how far past the mark, which fastener first — and it has to live in the system where the work is done.
Do people need training on MYREX itself?
The technician-facing flow is: open the machine, find the spot, follow the steps, tap where something is wrong. Crews working in Spanish should know that Spanish (LatAm) is in development, not shipped.
Does MYREX keep training records?
No. MYREX records maintenance work — what was done, where on the machine, by whom, with an attestation on completion. Records of who has been trained or certified on what live in whatever system you use for that today.
See it on your own machine.
Bring a machine you already know is a mess to explain, and we will show you what it looks like inside MYREX.