The problem was that their main workforce had aged and was all coming up to retirement. So, how best to capture hundreds of years of knowledge before it walked out of the door.
That's probably the truest commentary I have seen for quite some time .. in many areas of activity these days. Corporate knowledge and the in/outside discipline expertise held by these experienced folks is perhaps not irreplaceable in the main .. but why lose it and then have to reinvent the wheel.
Give you a trivial f'instance .. years ago I had a performance query for which I needed an old document reference. I rang my chief performance buddy in the local regulator but, in his absence that day, the call switched through to another buddy .. this time the structures boss. After pleasantries and the like, he asked what I was ringing the other chap for .. when I explained ... his response was along the lines of .. "hang on a minute, I think I have a copy of that report in the bottom drawer". Now, why he would have that document is more than a bit strange .. the point of the tale is that, not only did he have it, he know precisely what bit of it I needed to sort out my problem and it all was totally outside his routine professional ambit ... and we put these guys out to pasture on a regular basis .. unbelieveable.
That is axiomatic.
it should be. However, in many operations (general aviation in particular) it doesn't happen.
The real question is, what happens afterwards? Is the entry closed with "tested, found serviceable"? Or is it transferred to ADD with "please report further"?
all depends on your particular system. "Checked serv IAW XYZ" is fine if you don't see a developing, but undetected problem. The sensible way to go in the latter case is to declare the concern so that all are clear on the situation. Our system is a little different procedurally but achieves the same end.
The point is, is the techlog merely a pilot-to-maintainer communication tool, or is it, as you suggest, a pilot-to-maintainer-to-next-pilot communication tool?
again, depends heavily on the system and the tech/ops airworthiness culture within which you work.. I mandate the latter in our operation for purely selfish reasons ... if it all comes unstuck, and ends up as a smoking hole in the hillside, I'm the guy who gets tied to the stake and despatched without too much ceremony.
For it to be the former, that infers pilots don't review recent history on the particular tail when taking the aircraft .. that is just inconceivably stupid to my way of thinking and at variance with every operation with which I have been familiar over the years.