Precia Molen preserves over 50 years of expertise with Deplia
Knowledge transfer in industry: how Precia Molen, a global leader in industrial weighing, preserved the know-how of three departing R&D experts.
When expertise leaves the company
Knowledge leaves faster than companies can pass it on.
When experts leave, companies lose invaluable knowledge
In France alone, 800,000 retirements are expected in 2027, on top of the resignations seen since Covid. You can fill a position, but you cannot simply replace know-how: the reasons behind a design decision, the approaches ruled out ten years earlier for good reason, what has already been tried — none of this is documented, and a handover lasting a few weeks only captures what was already written down.
At Precia Molen, expertise that cannot be taught in a classroom
A global leader in industrial weighing, Precia Molen has built up a wealth of technical and metrological knowledge over several decades. The departure of several R&D experts in 2026 provided an opportunity to explore a new way of capturing this expertise and turning it into a lasting digital asset for the company.
Working with Neovision and Deplia, Precia Molen is exploring how artificial intelligence can structure knowledge drawn from documents, conversations and accumulated experience, making it easier to access and share with employees.
Structuring and sharing knowledge
Step two: turning this raw material into knowledge that teams can use.
A knowledge-structuring methodology developed by Neovision
Neovision’s AI engineers have developed a methodology that automatically structures knowledge records, tailored to the way each company organizes its data. Every business indexes and tracks information differently according to its activities: at Precia Molen, Deplia adapted to the existing organization of all its data.
Answers that explain strategic decisions
An employee asks a question in natural language. Instead of simply returning a document, Deplia reconstructs the expert’s reasoning: why a strategic decision was made, the logic behind it and the pitfalls to avoid.
This ability to reconstruct reasoning is no accident: it relies on intelligently selecting the sources associated with each knowledge record. There is one non-negotiable requirement: data quality. Without good data, even the best AI models produce unreliable answers. Precia Molen made this a priority, ensuring quality in the raw data itself (emails, documents of all kinds, and even C and C++ code).
The experts themselves — the people best placed to judge — found the answers highly satisfactory. Precia Molen is now working to change everyday practices, making Deplia the first port of call for all employees to reduce the time spent searching for information.
Annual key figures
Estimated ROI at Precia Molen
Several areas of savings are estimated on an annual basis, based on working hours actually saved.
- >0K€
- Tens of thousands of euros saved every year
- ÷0
- Time employees spend searching for information
- ÷0
- Time spent asking colleagues for help
- -0 months
- Time to proficiency during onboarding
Information retrieval: the biggest source of savings
The biggest source of savings is not training: it is the time spent finding out who knows what, where something is documented and whom to ask. It accounts for 60% of the total savings — and affects everyone, every day.
And the benefit goes beyond reducing search time: it is also about actually finding — or rediscovering — information that might otherwise be impossible to locate without Deplia.
Know-how becomes an asset that can be passed on
Knowledge that once left with the experts now stays in the company. Precia Molen has not merely solved a documentation problem; it has turned a dependency into a lasting asset. The know-how of its three experts is now captured in a structured knowledge base, validated by the experts themselves and searchable by those learning from them.
The question is no longer whether your experts will leave — they will. The question is what will remain once they are gone.
The partnership continues with a goal set by Precia Molen: enabling anyone in the company to capture new knowledge independently, without relying on a dedicated project. Knowledge preservation would then become an everyday practice rather than a one-off initiative.
Client testimonial
[Deplia] now allows us to access the knowledge of employees who have left the company, as though we could still ask them questions directly. In some cases, the tool can even provide more comprehensive answers, not because it replaces human expertise, but because it draws on all the knowledge, documents and exchanges accumulated throughout employees’ time with the company.
This success is the result of a genuine partnership with the Neovision teams. I particularly appreciated their ability to listen, their understanding of our business challenges and their skill in turning an ambitious idea into a practical, effective solution. Beyond their technical expertise, I worked with a committed, talented, responsive team that consistently brought new ideas to the table. Our interactions were professional, constructive and especially enjoyable throughout the project.
[Deplia] is now a strategic tool for preserving and making the most of our knowledge. This is only the first step, and we already plan to enrich the knowledge base with contributions from future employees so we can continue building on the company’s expertise.
Client
Precia Molen
Privas (France)
Sectors
Technologies
#RAG #LLM #Structuration
