A Special Report for Production, Manufacturing and Continuous Improvement Executives.

Are You Using Word, Excel or PowerPoint to

Create and Manage Your Assembly Work Instructions

and Supporting Documentation?

Do you Face One or More of These 5 Challenges?

1. Creating work instructions is complicated, time consuming and expensive.

2. Updating work instructions is a difficult, time consuming and error prone

process.

3. Distributing paper-based work instructions to the shop floor is costly, time

consuming and can be prone to error.

4. The lack of integration with back end systems increases the likelihood of

mistakes being made.

5. Real time production information and shop floor data collection is not

possible.

If you do then read on to find out how AssemblyX can help you.

As a manufacturer are you using MS Word, Excel or PowerPoint to create and manage your

assembly work instructions and supporting documentation?

If you do, you’re not alone!

An estimated 80% of manufacturing companies around the world still use and struggle with MS

Office tools for the creation and management of assembly work instructions every day.

Why is that?

Word, Excel and PowerPoint are great for producing letters, spreadsheets and presentations,

but they were never designed to produce, manage and distribute complex manufacturing

documentation.

You know only too well that creating manufacturing documentation for production is a very time

consuming and complex operation, especially when multiple data types and data sources such

as Bills of Materials, shop floor photographs, CAD, health and safety information, tooling details,

engineering changes are involved.

The information essential for the creation of manufacturing documentation results in your Word,

Excel or PowerPoint documents becoming bloated, cumbersome and very difficult to update.

Organizations have great difficulty when trying to achieve Lean excellence, i.e. minimizing

variability in manufacturing (six sigma), the use of visual management (Toyota Production

Systems) and standardized activities and processes (Kaizen) when using MS Office and paper

based systems for the creation and management of manufacturing documentation.

The path to becoming a world class manufacturer is made much easier by making the move to

a paperless shop floor.

You need the right tools for the job.

Work instructions push the limits of MS Office applications and end up causing numerous day-

to-day operational challenges and huge inefficiencies which impact the performance of your

assembly lines and the quality of your products.

In this short report, we will look at 5 of the main challenges companies like yours face as a

result of using MS Office tools to create and manage work instructions and supporting

documentation.

We will also illustrate how using purpose built Paperless Work Instruction software such as

AssemblyX you can have all your work instructions in one centrally managed database which is

securely backed-up, integrated with ERP and which will help you:

● Save significant time in the authoring, managing and updating of documentation.

● Automatically produce supporting documentation, such as inspection and test

instructions

● Deliver a paperless shop floor.

● Integrate into fragmented data sources such as ERP, MES and PLM).

● Capture critical production information such as time, workstation, duration, and serial

numbers.

● Record ‘as built’ information.

● Deliver manufacturing traceability.

1. Creating work instructions is complicated, time consuming and

expensive.

Creating work instructions is a very methodical and precise process and requires the document

author to describe and illustrate the step-by-step procedures for the assembly of a product.

In complex manufacturing environments, thousands of work instructions are needed which

requires large numbers of production engineers spending their time documenting the processes

for the assembly of the products.

Using Word, Excel or PowerPoint for the creation of the documentation introduces many

challenges, including the re-sizing of images, the ‘cutting and pasting’ of part numbers and bills

of materials, the inclusion of Health and Safety information and the introduction and re-

sequencing of assembly steps.

Example - The Story of John and ManFanCo:

ManFanCo manufactures and assembles instrumentation and control systems for the

aerospace and defence sector.

John is the Engineering Process Manager at ManFanCo, responsible for creating work

instructions and supporting documentation.

ManFanCo introduces five new products, with variants, each year, which in turn requires 12,000

pages of documentation. These 12,000 pages are created and maintained by John and his

team of engineers.

John’s team use a mixture of MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint to create the work instructions

and supporting documentation.

Using MS Office tools, John and his team are faced with many problems. These include:

● Excessive time taken to author and update documentation.

● Information is fragmented.

● Difficulty in importing data, text and images.

● Difficulty in adding ‘mark-ups’.

● Dealing with large, bloated and difficult to update files.

● The need to enter much of the data manually.

● The need to ‘Cut and Paste’.

● Procedures for the creation of Work Instructions are not standardized making it difficult

to train new employees.

● Maintaining document accuracy, such as the correct sequence of steps and ensuring

that steps are not missed.

● Reusing existing documents that contain 80% of the content

● Lack of document version control.

● Time required for additions to be made to supporting documentation.

● Sign-off and approval through a single application

The net-effect for ManFanCo of using MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint is that John and his

team are spending significant amounts of time creating and updating work instructions and

supporting documentation.

John’s team are frustrated as there is always a back log of work and they are well aware that

there is always the danger of mistakes being made and that product quality is being affected.

Solution:

AssemblyX is a web-based, on-premises or SaaS, easy to use software application which your

organisation can use to rapidly create work instructions and supporting documentation.

By replacing Word, Excel and PowerPoint with AssemblyX you can:

● Save significant amounts of authoring time.

● Standardize documentation.

● Reduce documentation errors.

More specifically you can:

● Manage manufacturing documentation from one application.

● Rapidly create documentation saving thousands of man hours.

● Ensure consistency in documentation.

● Remove the possibility of mistakes resulting from manual data entry and ‘cut and paste’.

● Easily import data, text and images.

● Easily add live mark-ups.

● Easily back up data.

● Provide version control and workflow, including sign-off and approval steps.

● Eliminate hard to use, bloated files.

● Greatly reduce the possibility of errors.

● Automatically create supporting documentation, such as check sheets or inspection

points

AssemblyX enables the rapid creation of manufacturing documentation without having to

be concerned about formatting or the inclusion of all the relevant information for the

operator to complete his work

2. Updating work instructions is a difficult, time consuming and

error prone process.

Once work instructions and supporting documentation are created, they can very quickly

become out of date.

This may be due to a number of factors, including:

● The introduction of engineering changes.

● Errors in the original documentation which need correcting.

● Feedback from the shop floor that something can be done in a better way.

To change the documentation, it is necessary to: -

● Identify the correct version of the documentation.

● Assess which sections of the documentation require updating.

● Update the documentation including the introduction of new part numbers, the removal

or addition of steps, images, mark-ups, tooling and health and safety instructions.

Using MS Office applications for the updating and management of the documentation is a time

consuming and complex process. This can result in updates not being completed on time which

can have a knock-on effect on the shop-floor and ultimately product quality,

Example - The Story of David and TrainCo:

TrainCo is a manufacturer of sub-systems for trains including power conversion and propulsion

systems.

David is the engineer in charge of maintaining the work instructions and the supporting

documentation.

David stores all his documents on a shared network drive in master folders and sub-folders and

manages the version control through an Excel spreadsheet. The final production documentation

is uploaded and stored in SAP.

David spends much of his time in processing engineering changes onto the work instructions

and the supporting documentation.

David has recently received an Engineering Change Order (ECO) which involves a part number

change and additional steps to the build process.

David spends a great deal of time trying to:

● Find the correct version of the documents on the network drive that require updating.

● Understand which work instructions and supporting documents will be affected.

● Identify the specific steps in the operations which will be affected.

● Add in the extra steps and remove any unwanted steps.

● Add in new part images, CAD or photos, part numbers, health and safety information

and tooling, all without altering the layout and the formatting of the documents.

David is left with a huge problem in trying to update the original documentation.

10 documents are affected by the Engineering Change Order, including inspection sheets, work

instructions, visual aids, test procedures and health and safety instructions., Trying to insert new

steps or remove existing steps into the MS Office documents is very difficult and time

consuming, and creates major formatting issues and introduces a high risk of mistakes being

made.

Solution:

Using AssemblyX you can easily and quickly identify any work instructions and supporting

documentation which may be affected by a change.

Whether it is the introduction of an engineering change order, corrections due to errors in the

original document, or process improvement feedback from the shop floor, once identified you

can easily update your work instructions and supporting documentation saving many man hours

and often man days.

AssemblyX allows the user to identify effected documentation and apply updates quickly

and easily without disrupting the formatting.

3. Distributing paper-based Work Instructions to the shop floor is

costly, time consuming and prone to error.

The completed work instructions have to be distributed to the shop floor.

This carries its own set of challenges.

With a paper based system, the production team has to print off all the documents, first making

sure that they are the latest version or in the correct configuration for the production order. The

documents can then be distributed to the relevant shop floor employees and benches..

Paper based manufacturing documentation created in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint poses

particular challenges for mixed mode, single piece flow manufacturing or organisations that

have many product variants.

An assembly worker can produce a number of different products on the same day and all will

require their own set of manufacturing documentation.

It is not unusual to find the person assembling the products to have:

● A workstation cluttered with paperwork.

● The wrong work instructions for the job.

● Out of date work instructions.

● Documentation with missing pages.

● Documentation which has become separated from the production order.

Example - The Story of Richard and DefenceCo:

DefenceCo is a manufacturer of defence electronic equipment.

Richard is the Manufacturing Director responsible for all operations including responsibility for

production facilities and product assembly.

Richard’s team uses MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint to create and manage work instructions.

These paper based MS Office documents have a poor layout, a lack of consistency, incorrect

or inconsistent tooling information, missing content, incorrect part numbers, no health and safety

instructions, a heavy use of text, fuzzy and distorted images and no use of the recent

investment in 3D CAD.

Because of this:

● Work instructions and supporting documentation are ambiguous and unclear.

● Documentation on the shop floor is often out of date.

● Documentation is being interpreted by shop-floor personnel in different ways.

● The assembly lines have been known to use the wrong documentation for a particular

production order.

● There is out of control documentation on the shop floor.

These five issues are leading to increasing end-of-line re-works.

Solution:

AssemblyX is a software application where all work instruction and supporting documentation is

authored, updated and managed centrally, enabling up to date documentation to be delivered to

the shop floor electronically via screens. This removes the need for any paper-work on the

shop floor.

AssemblyX enables organisations to ensure standardization and consistency, which provides a

platform for continuous improvement.

With screens on the shop-floor it is possible to electronically tie production orders to the

manufacturing documentation, making sure that the correct information is delivered to the bench

for use by the operator.

Also going paperless with AssemblyX provides a more visual approach to manufacturing by

allowing the use of 3D, 2D, AVI and visual information as well reducing paper and printing costs.

Moving to paperless manufacturing documentation gives companies the opportunity to easily

record the current status of a production process such as its start time, employee(s) involved,

work station identity, progress, serial numbers and quality control information.

The introduction of AssemblyX will save time, reduce the possibility of errors and with more

accurate and up to date information being sent to and from the shop-floor the inevitable result

will be the reduction of ‘end of line’ reworks.

AssemblyX enables paperless distribution of the documentation to the shop floor

through a web browser

4 .The lack of integration with back-end systems increases the

likelihood of mistakes being made.

Manufacturing companies invest large amounts of money on their software applications and

back-end systems such as ERP, PLM, MRP, DMS, and CAD.

The entire business is run through these systems, with each of the products meticulously

defined in, for example, material masters, BOMs, 2D/3D and ECAD documents, routings,

tooling, schedules and work orders.

Other than photographs from the shop floor, everything needed to create work instructions and

supporting documentation already exists in an electronic format of some kind.

However, when using Word, Excel and PowerPoint to manually create work instructions and the

supporting documentation, there is no easy and simple way to import / export the data between

the back-end systems and the work instructions and supporting documentation..

Users have to rekey and ‘cut and paste’, spending significant time duplicating the data which

already exists in the back-end systems.

Not only is the manual creation of work instructions very time consuming, but, because it is a

disconnected process, it also greatly increases the possibility of errors being made.

Example - The Story of Graham and ROVCo:

ROVCo is a manufacturer of remotely operated vehicles for the defence industry. They use SAP

as their ERP system.

Graham is responsible for creating the work instructions for the latest products.

The Quality Department have been complaining of an increase in end-of-line errors and have

identified manufacturing documentation, that is work instructions and supporting documentation

to be the root cause.

Typical work instruction errors include incorrect part numbers, quantities and tooling, out of date

product and part images, ECN information missing and the omission of mark-ups from images,

confusing the operator

Graham uses standalone MS Office applications to create the manufacturing documentation,

and with the need to manually enter data and to cut and paste, errors frequently occur.

For example:

1. In order to get the BOM, the basis of the Work Instruction, into MS Word, Graham has to first

download the BOM into Excel from SAP. He then has to cut the part numbers and quantities

from Excel and paste them into Word.

Although this appears relatively straightforward, usually the BOM Graham downloads is an

engineering BOM and not a planning BOM. This means the part sequence and part quantities

are not aligned with the build process.

Graham has to constantly alter the part quantities and their positions which increase the

possibility of error.

2. When creating work instructions in MS Office, Graham first downloads and ‘prints off’ the

BOM and routings from his ERP system.

It is these BOMs and routings which form the basis of the work instructions.

However, when Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) arise, Graham has to manually enter any

changes into the ‘disconnected’ work instruction.

This manual update significantly increases the chances of error.

3. In creating work instructions, Graham spends a lot of time finding, importing, resizing and

marking-up images. These images are a mixture of photographs, health and safety, 2D or 3D

CAD drawings, graphics, and ECAD images.

These images are stored in several locations such as network drives and the Engineering

Document Management System or are provided directly by Engineering.

Using Word, Excel and PowerPoint, finding, importing, formatting and marking-up the images is

a time consuming and frustrating process and again can lead to errors being made.

Solution:

Using AssemblyX, it is possible to directly connect together the company’s ERP, DMS, PLM,

and MES systems, eliminating the need for the re-entry of data, ‘cutting and pasting’ and to

manually search for images and supporting information. This helps to:

● Eliminate errors in the creation and updating of work instructions.

● Significantly reduce the time it takes to create or update work instructions.

● Ensure that work instructions are up-to-date and include all the latest changes.

With an integrated system such as AssemblyX, the following objects and structures can

beshared between systems:

● Parts master

● BOM structure

● Engineering change

● Work orders

● Routings and operations

AssemblyX allows the user to import Bill of Materials ensuring the correct part number,

consumption of parts and quantities are in line with the SAP Production BOM

AssemblyX allows the user to select the routing from the ERP system ensuring the

production process matches the costing and timing allocation

(Requires Integration)

5. Real time production information and shop floor data collection is

not possible to capture

Many manufacturers have well thought out, meaningful step-by-step work instructions which

guide the shop floor employees through the assembly and testing processes.

However, because the work instructions are created in MS Office applications and often there

are no screens at the workstation, there is a disconnection between the back-office systems and

the step-by-step build operations.

This disconnection has five major implications:

1. Resolving problems on the assembly line is slow because of the lack of easy

access to all the essential up-to-date information such as drawings, SOPs and ECOs.

2. It is very difficult to have real-time production timings at a step-by-step level

because using paper based work instructions rather than shop-floor screens, it is very

difficult to capture real-time production timings in order to improve flow and line

balancing.

3. It is difficult, and can lead to inaccuracies, to attempt to record ‘real-time as

built’ product information using paper based systems rather than shop-floor screens.

It is very difficult with paper-based systems to capture BOM, parts, shop floor employee,

serial numbers, kits and other critical information tied to a particular batch or work order.

4. Testing results are disconnected from the ‘as built’ record when using paper

based systems rather than shop floor screens. The testing procedures and results are

not automatically connected to the product record and manual re-entry can be prone to

error.

5. Lack of ‘full circle’ traceability and visibility when using paper based systems

rather than shop floor screens. Information is not centralised, is disconnected and in

mixed formats making traceability an impossibility.

Example:

TechCo is a manufacturer of control systems for the aerospace industry.

George is the production manager who manages the shop floor. TechCo have 13 production

lines, each with 12 work-stations.

TechCo manufactures 15 main products, each product having 3 to 5 variations.

The company uses MS Word and Excel to create paper based work instructions and additional

paper based documents to trace critical serial numbers, to obtain test results and to measure

production output.

Having to use these various paper based methods is very time consuming and because the

systems are disconnected, there is a strong possibility of errors being made.

George and the production line team leaders are faced with the following problems:

● No ‘real time’ information on the shop floor performance.

● The existence of ‘out of control’ documentation.

● Difficulty in dealing with disconnected systems and the need to rekey test results and

product information back into these systems.

● Production line team leaders struggling to resolve line stoppages because of lack of

easily accessible accurate information.

Also assembly line employees have problems with:

● The large amount of paperwork associated to one particular order.

● Work stations cluttered with paper work.

● Lack of live ‘on-line’ access to ‘drill down’ information

All of the above problems lead to an inefficient production line, the possibility of missed delivery

targets and an increase in ‘end of line’ reworks.

Solution:

AssemblyX allows the shop floor to be cleared of the paperwork and all work instructions, build

records and test information is available online.

With AssemblyX every aspect of the production process is available in ‘real time’ online,

including:

● Production performance, timing and analysis.

● ‘As built’ records for each batch/unit including time started, time taken, employee(s)

involved, workstation identity, tooling used, product and component serial numbers.

● Test records.

AssemblyX allows the rapid creation of test instructions and the paperless capture of

test results from the shop floor.

AssemblyX test and inspection points are an integral part of the on-screen procedures