In the business world, everything is becoming more and more digital, and work instructions are no different. They are important documents because they tell the operators how to do their jobs smoothly at their workstations. Some people argue that they should be moved to digital format for the following five reasons:

Digitize work instructions to make your company more productive.

Paper-based work instructions are considered to be out of date and need to be changed because they don’t support productivity as well. They are hard to get to, and there aren’t many ways to understand them. This is in contrast to the new digital tools, which can be used in many different ways. So, how do you make effective work instructions?

An operator can read work instructions and collect field data much more easily from a visual, interactive document than from a lot of written instructions. 

This kind of visualisation is especially helpful for procedures that are hard to understand and for which even the smallest mistake can have serious effects on industrial production. Digital work instructions help make the production line run more smoothly, which increases and improves productivity.

Training that works better and goes faster

Supports and systems that are more in line with how the work environment has changed over time make it easier for people in training to learn new things.

In the same way that the operator looks at digital work instructions at his workstation to do his job well, the trainee will use real-time data on the computer and tablet to better understand work instructions and learn them faster. This cuts down on the time it takes to train people and lets the company add new skills to its teams faster, making them stronger and preventing a skills gap.

By digitising work instructions, changeover times can be cut down.

Changeovers are important, but they hurt production and slow down the life cycle of a product. For example, the machine we use to make changes (mould, jig, tool, etc.) and adjustments cannot be used for production during that time. 

For example, the SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die) method includes an analysis of work instructions, which is made much better by digital technology. Because of this, it is easier to find unnecessary tasks in the work instructions. Once these sources of error, defect, and slowness are gone, the work instructions become more efficient.

With digital work instructions that can be followed, operators can do simple tasks like level 1 maintenance that are usually done by the maintenance department. This saves time during changeovers.

Continuous improvement 

By putting work instructions online, we make them easier to follow and give operators the chance to improve efficiency, figure out why each step is important, and suggest and submit improvements.

Another big benefit of digital work instructions is that you can update all your documents and checklists with just one click. The operators always use the most up-to-date version of the information. This is like the Kaizen method, which is about improving things all the time. So we can say that using digital work instructions is part of a process of always getting better.

Less errors, more quality

Digital work instructions are more accurate because they are made to help operators do their jobs right the first time, without making any mistakes. Errors happen less often when there are no paper instructions. So, getting rid of errors helps save time and money.