Retention of institutional knowledge and knowledge transfer is critical to organizations, no matter the industry, but is of particular interest in the railway industry. Retaining the expertise of its workforce dominated by aging baby boomers is essential to the success of the rail industry amidst rising freight transportation demand. Considering the number of retiring of employees and multiplying by their years of service, railroad companies are realizing they are losing what is equivalent to hundreds (sometimes thousands) of years of experience.

The first thing to look at to tackle this problem is understanding what institutional knowledge actually is. One of the best definitions is all-encompassing: a collective set of facts, historical data, concepts, experiences and knowledge held by a group of people. Transferring knowledge means looking at those key components individually.