As well as editing Motor Equipment News I also edit another of our titles – DEMM Engineering & Manufacturing which ties in with my own engineering background. DEMM recently published a manufacturing related article about how, particularly larger, manufacturers are looking at ways they can capture the knowledge retained in the minds of many key trades staff that are approaching retirement. These are people such as machinists, quality control inspectors and technicians. A lot of this work is moving to automated robotics with AI support, but what get lost is the innate feel and intuitive ability some of these experts retain to detect flaws or sense when a tolerance is drifting. This issue also applies in the automotive repair world. 
As processes become more automated, new employees learn less of the basics – or more correctly they learn them in particular but never need to apply them because their scan tool gives them the answer. A bit like how we now can’t remember phone numbers as they are all saved in our phones, whereas I could still recite my childhood phone number to you!
Maybe sometimes we just need to have a day or a job when you tell the young technician to put his (or her) scan tool aside and go back to first principles to solve the problem.
Apart from helping make them a better technician, this will also help if they need to do a repair when away from the workshop without the fancy tools.
One of my favourite YouTube Channels is Mr Hewes, where a group of people repair tanks, and it is great to see some old fashioned repair work – often utilising the ‘if it don’t move when it should apply WD40’, and ‘hit it and if it moves when it shouldn’t weld it or duct tape it’ school of repairs! Not to mention they are working on engines with points and carburettors – old school at its best!