The problem
The work isn't going away. The engineers are.
The intelligence of a plant is trapped in its drawings. A P&ID is topology: the connections and sequence between thousands of symbols. Generic models read the text and stop there, about 5% of what the sheet holds. The rest takes an expert's eye, one sheet at a time, across tens of thousands of sheets. And the experts are leaving: most of what they know was never written down.
5%of a P&ID is text. Generic models stop there.
1 in 2process engineers reach retirement age this decade.
$50Blost to unplanned downtime across the industry, every year.
2.1Mmanufacturing roles unfilled by 2030, at a cost of up to $1 trillion.
Hiring will not close the gap. The backlog of isolations, investigations, hazard reviews, and change requests grows behind engineers the market cannot supply.