Work Instructions in Kitchen Equipment Manufacturing
Reducing Costs in Manufacturing
Manufacturing kitchen equipment for consumers or commercial enterprises demands precision, durability, and safety in design and construction. Work instructions ensure a product is built consistently while making it easier to train new workers.
This industry often needs the option to export work instructions to a PDF that can be printed, but increasingly the industry is looking for a roadmap that provides a smooth transition from paper to true electronic presentation of the work instructions.
Key drivers are reducing the printing costs of paper instructions and improving compliance with industry standards, including ISO, by ensuring the most current instructions are available to production. Well-written standards for training reduce the time and cost of onboarding new employees.
Benefits of Electronic Work Instructions in Kitchen Equipment Manufacturing
Quick and Easy Authoring Tools
When your work instruction authoring interface is designed for engineers and technical writers, details from subject matters experts in production are easily and quickly captured.
The food and beverage industry is constantly trying to keep up with the ever-changing wants of consumers. Sequence’s work instructions help make it quick and easy to capture the steps and pictures for a new manufacturing process, while also making the task of updating or changing existing processes just as easy.
Global Steps
The repetivite task of updating instructions for multiple product models within a family is exhausting. Enter global steps to save the day (& time). Authors can make certain steps “global”, meaning one or more steps can be re-used on multiple parts. Taking it a step further, if a change is made to a “global” step, the changes will automatically propogate to any part using the global step(s).
Here’s the next question we usually get right about now: What if the step is mostly global, but has some variation in it from part number to part number? Sequence has advanced features that provide the flexibility to handle these types of nuances because we see this ALL the time in industries that have families of products.
Paper and/or Digital Work Instructions
For some companies, moving away from paper completely can feel daunting or unattainable, but your work instruction presentation shouldn’t have to be “either-or”. With Sequence, you can have the best of both worlds. In fact, work instructions can be presented in different formats simultaneously due to how our software manages content.
This also means you can start with static PDF deployment, then, as you are ready, move to a digital presentation without authors having to change the content in any way. Yep, you read that right – authors do not have to change the content in any way to swap from PDF to digital making the transition in production from paper to digital work instructions graceful.
Consistent Format
When it comes to providing consistent, standardized formatting within your work instructions, simplicity and ease of authoring are crucial. Sequence allows authors to create work instructions using a visual tree that does not format the instructions. Then when presented to a production user, Sequence’s does all the formatting creating a consistent look and feel across all authors, whether presentation is digital or PDF. This provides standardized format, while also reducing authoring time dramatically.
Version Tracking and Control
Traceability in your work instructions provides more confidence on the shop floor, in the authoring process, and during audits. Sequence maintains all version history for you. Our tracking system is so seamless, you won’t see it happening until you make changes to images or steps in the process. You’ll know who changed what and when, as well as who approved the processes, down to the individual steps. Best part: thanks to paperless deployment, the production floor will always have access to the most recent version of a work instruction once it’s been approved and published.
Communication between Production and Engineers
Communication between production and engineers is key. Digital work instructions facilitate communication in a variety of ways. Production users can easily submit suggestions for changes or report problems in a process. This could include process improvement, or it could be a Kaizen event driving several pictures or comments related to a process. Those notes immediately appear in the authoring interface for engineers. Engineering is then easily able to incorporate those changes and communicate changes via version notes in the new version.
As an added benefit management can run reports to know which users have signed off on version notes released to production on a given process.
Resources
How to Reduce Employee Turnover Through Improved Training
In previous posts, we looked at how poor training programs lead to employee turnover, and the many different costs associated with replacing a worker in manufacturing. Bottom line: turnover impacts both productivity and profitability. But one of the most effective...
Reducing the Burden of Work Instructions on Manufacturing Engineers
In today's rapidly evolving manufacturing landscape, efficiency and productivity are critical. Manufacturing engineers play a vital role in ensuring smooth operation in production, but their effectiveness can be hampered by an excessive burden of writing and...
Why Formatting is Beneficial for Your Company and Its Growth
In today’s market, switching over to digital documents and instructions is just the most sensible option. They are much easier to share and update and can save you a lot of money that would normally go to the cost of printing and publishing your work. However, one of...
Single-User Desktop Application
Developed for the manufacturing company needing to rapidly author visual work instructions without the hassle.
Authoring Application to Create & Approve Content
Our core product. Authors can quickly assemble rich, visual work instructions in a streamlined interface, then export to PDF.
Digital Deployment of Up-to-Date Visual Work Instructions
A dynamic electronic work instruction interface between engineering and the paperless manufacturing floor.
Digital Work Instructions Designed for Highly Repetitive Processes
An on-demand, scrollable, read-only shop floor access portal for paperless work instruction deployment.
Author within Sequence, Present within Your MES
A solution for organizations utilizing Manufacturing Execution Software (MES) that allows integration with the work flow.
Use BoMs, Ops, & Routings to Create Your Work Instructions Framework
A solution to ensure your electronic work instructions stay synchronized with your front-office software.
