Facing the reality that we will lose employees is stressful and inconvenient. Weather from voluntary or strategic reasons it will happen, look around at your crew. Who will retire in the next 5 years, decide to try a new career or have to be asked to leave. The numbers are unique to your company for sure. As a shop owner I have faced this problem on more occasions then I care to admit. First keep a line in the water at all times by looking for candidates within and from outside your company. This process will ensure you have options when you need to make the adjustments.
One of the biggest obstacles we face is the vacuum of knowledge from the shop. When the only person who knows how to set up a particular job or machine leaves this makes everyone stressed out. By having proper documentation in place we can avoid massive disruptions to our workforce and schedule. This allows us to transition others into this position or fill in until the proper person is hired even when they have less experience.
Production Pro is the tool need to achieve the goal of proper documentation.