The cost of lost knowledge (Km failure story 10)

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Here's a story I heard last week, from a guy in the defence industry.

 My company has been making this product, in various forms, since 1938 but it has never been well documented. Recently a problem was found, which we did not know how to solve, as the necessary documentation had never been saved. It cost me one month of my time to fix, during that time the production line was stopped, 30 people had to be sent home, and the client was seriously annoyed. All that cost, all that lost money and lost time, just because the key knowledge had never been captured, and the major impact was one disgruntled client".