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The connection of operational employees has arrived on the agenda of international executives of manufacturing companies. Pioneers can already measure enormous successes, while the majority of companies are still at the stage of paper, ERP interfaces on the shopfloor and fragmented in-house developments.

On 10 and 11 May 2022, we as Operations1 were nominated as one of the top 5 start-ups in the field of production and were thus able to engage in an exchange with many executives from Germany's most innovative factories. What was particularly motivating about this was that instead of focusing exclusively on the short-term challenges in global supply chains, the focus was particularly on the topics of sustainability, value orientation and digitalisation.

Operational excellence is no longer an option - for companies that want to survive in volatile, unsteady waters, there is no alternative. Numerous methods and instruments have developed around the management approach to support the achievement of objectives. Lean Management, Kaizen or Six Sigma are just a few examples. Another underestimated lever for achieving excellence goals is digitalization. We explain what operational excellence is and how you can take advantage of digitization to achieve excellence goals.

Responsibility for quality is increasingly being transferred to manufacturing departments. Nevertheless, worker self-inspection is a much-discussed topic – in addition to proponents, there are also critical voices.

Manufacturing companies are increasingly confronted with a variety of challenges: external shocks such as pandemics, wars and global supply bottlenecks are forcing medium-sized companies in particular to become more agile. Internal market developments such as the shortage of skilled workers, an increasing demand for high product diversity, and shortened product life cycles add to the difficulty. The methods and tools of lean management are therefore more important than ever many years after they were first described. The good news: it is easier today than ever before to implement them.

Many manufacturing companies still use paper-based checklists in quality inspection. However, static inspection documentation poses several quality risks at once.

In many industrial companies, more and more frequently necessary retrofitting causes unproductive times for employees and production losses. Depending on the complexity of the changeover, this can take a correspondingly long time and be error-prone. Digital assistance platforms can provide support here. Learn how.

Machines and systems, but also building services installations, must be inspected and maintained at regular intervals to ensure that production operations run smoothly. Daily maintenance plans are an integral part of maintenance and must therefore be carefully attended to at all times.

Writing work instructions is cumbersome. We understand that. But we would still like to take up the cudgels for them. Comprehensible step-by-step instructions not only help to carry out activities correctly. The creation of work instructions is an underestimated, value-adding process: processes are critically analyzed and further developed in the process. That's why we don't just want to give you tips on how to write really good work instructions. We will show you the potential that writing them holds for industrial companies. Read on to find out how you can leverage this potential. Or, jump straight to the content and style of the perfect work instruction.

The importance of high-quality work instructions is constantly increasing. In times of COVID-19, a shortage of skilled workers, small batch sizes and varied productions, a precise work instruction is the gold of the 21st century. Find out here how to create a professional work instruction and what you have to pay attention to.