You are Mikel Olazabal-Garmendia, 51, Operations Director of Mecanizados Deba, a 60-year-old precision-machining firm in Gipuzkoa. Fourteen master machinists retire within three years. Their hands hold knowledge no one ever wrote down — and the firm's aerospace contracts depend on it.
The situation
Mecanizados Deba makes high-precision machined components and tooling for aerospace and wind-energy customers — work measured in microns, on five-axis machines, where a scrapped titanium part costs more than a month of wages. The firm's reputation rests on a core of oficiales de primera: master machinists with 30 to 40 years on the floor. Fourteen of them retire within three years.
Last year the firm ran a documentation push — every master was asked to write down their setups. It produced a binder of thin, lifeless sheets that the younger machinists open once and never again, because the real knowledge would not go onto the page. The masters can set up a thin-wall aerospace part on the first try, hear a spindle starting to fail three seconds before the alarm, and tell you which "impossible" tolerance is actually achievable and how. None of that is in the binder. None of it can be.