Capturing Tribal Knowledge: How Carolina Handling and Squint Are Solving the Forklift Service Crisis

Key Takeaways:

COO Joe Perkins of Carolina Handling joined forces with Squint to address one of the most difficult challenges in the field service industry: capturing tribal knowledge before it walks out the door with retiring technicians.

• The challenge: 150+ forklift models, 250+ unique error codes per model, and approximately 27,000 potential failure scenarios.
• The retirement risk: Years of tacit knowledge were in danger of being lost when veteran technicians retired.
• The solution: AI-generated work instructions combined with augmented reality overlays on the real equipment.
• The rollout method: A small, focused pilot with an innovative manager, not a 500-tech mass deployment.
• The results: Issue resolution 3× faster, support call volume plummeted, and technicians reported higher confidence and engagement.

How can field service companies capture knowledge before veterans retire?

By making expertise digital, contextual, and accessible at the point of work, Carolina Handling, under COO Joe Perkins, partnered with Squint to record expert procedures on video, auto-generate step-by-step digital instructions, and overlay AR guidance directly on the physical equipment in the field.

Knowledge capture starts with structured field data. See how Praxedo’s field service management platform and its unified mobile app for technicians help you turn every job into a reusable, searchable asset for the next generation of your workforce.

The Full Story

Carolina Handling is a leader in the material handling industry. Still, they had a daunting challenge: how to support technicians across 150 different forklift models, each with 250+ unique error codes, totalling roughly 27,000 potential ways a machine can fail. The company faced the prospect of losing decades of “tribal knowledge”, the tacit know-how that keeps a business alive, as its most experienced employees started to retire.

The Problem with Digital Manuals

The company had previously attempted to digitize work instructions with tools such as SharePoint. But these systems were hard to reach in the field and almost impossible to keep current with best practices. What they required was a way to deliver the right information to a technician at the right time, which meant a complete rethinking of field service knowledge management, not a digitized version of a broken process.

Squint: Bridging the Knowledge Gap

Carolina Handling partnered with Squint, an AI-powered software platform that captures and deploys technical knowledge. The system, built by founder Devin Bhushan and his team, works in two distinct phases:

• Capturing Knowledge: Using AI, an expert can record a video of themselves performing a procedure. Squint then automatically generates a step-by-step digital work instruction, complete with video segments for each stage. These AI-powered work instructions become a living library of institutional expertise rather than a static PDF that ages out the moment it’s published.
• Augmented Reality (AR) Deployment: Technicians in the field use a mobile device to view the machine through their camera. Squint uses augmented reality to overlay digital markers and arrows on physical equipment, guiding field technicians through the procedure in real time.

The combination of capture and AR deployment closes the loop between expert knowledge and frontline execution, exactly where most knowledge programs fall apart.

Success Through Small Pilots

Carolina Handling didn’t roll out the technology to all 500 technicians at once. Rather, they focused on a small pilot group and on specific use cases that were hard for new hires to learn. They selected an innovative manager to spearhead the effort and treated the pilot group as a development partner, responding rapidly to bugs and feedback. This pilot-first strategy transformed technician onboarding and training from a one-time event to an ongoing, feedback-driven process that reinforced each use case.

Tremendous Results

Carolina Handling experienced a dramatic performance change by making knowledge accessible at the “point of work. Resolution time was tripled, and the number of support calls to the central office dropped significantly. Most significantly, workers said they felt more confident and engaged, with an “AI co-pilot” available to help them decipher code and correct mistakes.

Conclusion

Carolina Handling’s partnership with Squint is a useful case study for any service organization staring down a wave of retirements and a growing skills gap. The takeaway from the lesson is that AR or AI is not a magic bullet, but rather a thoughtful mix of three elements: a method for capturing expertise without burdening experts, a method for delivering it to technicians at the point of work, and a pilot strategy that demonstrates value before scaling.

When knowledge management for field service is based on those three pillars, it becomes more than a documentation project and becomes a competitive advantage. The way forward for service leaders who are prepared to take the next step is obvious: begin small, capture intentionally, and share knowledge where the work is done.

Request a demo with Praxedo to see how a unified field service platform supports the foundational work of improving service quality and tracking technician performance, the data layer that makes any AI or AR initiative actually work.

FAQs:

1. What is “tribal knowledge” in field service?

It’s the unwritten expertise veteran technicians carry, like shortcuts, fixes, and pattern recognition that isn’t documented anywhere. When experienced workers retire, that knowledge often leaves with them.

2. How does Squint use AI to capture expert knowledge?

An expert captures themselves doing a procedure, and Squint’s AI creates a step-by-step work instruction with embedded video segments. No manual documentation is needed.

3. How does augmented reality for field technicians actually work?

Technicians use a camera on a mobile device to look at the equipment. Squint superimposes digital markers and arrows on the physical machine in real time and walks them through the process step by step.

4. Why did Carolina Handling start with a small pilot instead of a full rollout?

To minimize risk and learn fast. By treating the pilot group as a development partner, they could iterate quickly on bugs and feedback before scaling to all 500 technicians.

5. What results did Carolina Handling see with Squint?

Resolution time was tripled, calls to the central office were significantly reduced, and technicians felt more confident and engaged in their work.

6. How do AI-powered work instructions help with technician onboarding and training?

They provide a guided, on-demand learning resource for new technicians, with expert video and AR guidance to speed up ramp time and decrease reliance on senior staff.