The key to making a smart factory is to turn your work instructions into digital files. Digital work instructions give you the tools you need to reach your smart manufacturing goals. They let you standardise processes and collect important data.

Today, manufacturing companies have to deal with a lot of problems. The business world moves quickly and is very competitive. If manufacturers don't use modern technology and methods, their turnover costs will be high, quality control will be expensive, and their productivity will go down.

Your company can move a long way by digitising its work instructions. Work instructions software has a lot of benefits that keep growing.

Improve the way manufacturing works

Digital work instructions are a proven way to get more done. With an easy-to-use interface, employees can quickly figure out what they need to do and get it done. Your most experienced workers are the ones who write the interactive work instructions. With the click of a button, your employees can get access to years of experience.

It literally gives you the chance to share the knowledge of your best workers with the rest of your staff, making everyone a high performer.

Make things work better

When following complicated or dense instructions, operators need time to understand the steps. This slows down work and leads to mistakes. Misunderstandings can hurt the quality of your product and cause you to have to do extra work.

Putting in place detailed process instructions can solve this problem and change the speed of your production. Operators can now focus more on their work and less on figuring out what their instructions mean because they can see them.

Digital work instructions not only make production run more smoothly, but they also save the people who write them time. This time can then be put toward important business projects that will bring in more money for your company.

Make it easier to use and manage

Digital work instructions can be accessed from any computer, tablet, or phone. Their paper versions are kept in big binders, which are often stacked in a corner of the factory floor. If an operator needs to look at a document, they have to stop what they are doing and use valuable time to find and move the document.

Digital documentation tools are easy to search and can use QR codes to give workers on the shop floor instant access to relevant documents. This effectively ensures that workers have access to accurate information anywhere.

Get rid of flaws by doing more quality control

By giving your employees digital work instructions, they can quickly find out what your best practices are right now. This helps a lot to get rid of mistakes and improve the quality of the product.

Digital work instructions give companies performance data in real time. At each step in your process, the software collects good data. If the step isn't done within the given parameters, the software tells the operator and won't let them move on to the next step. With real-time quality monitoring, your production line has very little room for mistakes or flaws. In the end, this gives your customers more faith in your product.

Optimize operational costs

Every year, American businesses spend more than hundred billion dollars on printing forms, but most of them are out of date in three months. Paper is easy to make mistakes with and can be handled in the wrong way, which leads to bad data quality and security.

Digital work instructions help companies get rid of paper and the costs that come with it, like printing, shipping, and storing. The data is sent to SAP systems in real time, so there is no room for mistakes or mismanagement. This gets rid of the need to redo work and makes it easier on the back-office staff.

Make sure you follow the rules.

In industries with a lot of assets, regulations often change to match industry trends and environmental factors. During a change in regulations, companies with traditional, manual front-line operations cause chaos. Businesses need agile practices to make changes to their standard operating procedures quickly (SOP).

Digital work instructions make it easy for compliance teams in companies with a lot of assets to update their SOPs quickly. Integrating with SAP systems helps companies keep their teams up-to-date on changes and keep up with regulations.