Maximized production capacity and high quality, made possible by knowledgeable and engaged workers. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

While this is the ideal scenario for many manufacturers today, achieving it may feel out of reach for multiple reasons. Chief among them are daily workforce challenges like skilled worker shortages, retention, and retirements. “The severity of today’s global labor shortage and skills gap intensifies the problem of attracting, managing and retaining skilled workers, but there is hope,” as stated in the 2024 Annual State of Smart Manufacturing.  

Without the consistent presence of team members who are engaged and familiar with your processes, several issues may arise. As production setup times increase, production capacity decreases. Quality is inconsistent. When combined with unpredictable supplier capabilities and customer demands, it can be difficult to keep up, let alone set aside time to create long-term strategies.

Adding consistency to processes helps manufacturers withstand worker churn and gain tighter control of production capacity and quality. “Through increased use of smart manufacturing technology, 94% expect to hire more workers or repurpose workers to new or different roles,” as stated in the 2024 Annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report (rockwellautomation.com)

Today, you can truly overcome these challenges with modern and smart manufacturing technologies offered by Plex Guided Work Instructions, adding clear, concise, and detailed production steps at the fingertips of your technicians and operators. This solution also generates workflow data that is visible and trackable for all stakeholders, providing valuable information for establishing the best quality practices throughout the enterprise.

Start at the Beginning - Manufacturers often report that their production setup processes — which can encompass multiple steps — cause significant delays in the schedule, leading to extended idle times for equipment and personnel.  New hires or untrained operators can cause additional delays in production due to steep learning curves and the challenges posed by outdated training resources.  

Guided Work Instructions in Plex is designed to reduce wasteful production downtime by standardizing processes throughout the organization. The step-by-step directions can streamline the onboarding process for even the most sophisticated tasks. The solution offers an interactive interface that is equipped with rich text and detailed images to break down complex tasks into simpler steps.  

“… We now have embedded images as well as full tasks for work instructions. Previously it was just the wall of text, those barely getting reviewed,” stated by Christopher Giles, Sr. IT ERP Analyst at Recaro Automotive. “With Guided Work Instructions, I can rely on someone who's been here five years or someone who's been here a month. I should not be seeing a discrepancy in terms of what they're doing, how they're doing it and the quality of things that they're producing.”

So, whether your company is retraining current employees, or onboarding new staff, using digitized and consistent Guided Work Instructions can steady your workflows through disruptions and keep you productive and competitive.

Continuous Improvement

Guided Work Instructions empower your teams to work smarter not harder!  
Operators can record their activity in real time and get immediate feedback and validation to make sure each task is completed with precision.  This real-time tracking also highlights any deviations from the expected timeline, allowing for quick identification and analysis of any step that takes longer than planned. Consequently, this leads to more efficient workflow management and continuous improvement in operational standard.

Stabilizing Through Change

Utilizing Guided Work Instructions, changes in procedures or product specifications can be updated instantly. Operators can get real time alerts when there are errors and make corrections in real time. Working from a single, accurate data source, your company can use the data to track workflow histories and fine tune your processes in order to decrease errors, reduce waste, and maintain quality

Built-In Quality Checks

There is no overstating how important quality is to your business, because every step has the potential to impact quality — positively or negatively. 

With Guided Work Instructions, your workers have immediate access to quality checksheets guiding them through detailed inspections and protocols that are tailored to each role.  These cheecksheets can be customized with time- and process-based. Your teams can also receive quality alerts and verify if and when those alerts were addressed. 
Embedding quality into the day-to-day production steps, helps reduce the time and money spent on costly reworks and empowers your employees to play an active role in your product’s quality control. It also equips leadership with the essential information needed to improve quality both in real time and into the future.  

Connected and Controlled 

Guided Work Instructions are designed to better connect workers from shop floor to top floor with the information they need to do their jobs well. With clear instructions for the tasks at hand, and accurate workflow history to shape big-picture goals, manufacturers are ready to reach ideal operational status by maximizing capacity, overcoming workforce challenges, and improving quality. 

Discover how Guided Work Instructions in Plex can streamline your operations. Click through the interactive demo here.