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I'd appreciate your suggestions (privately; I'll summarize later) as to
products you've used for the creation, management, and version control of
manufacturing/work instructions.
Some Background:
I've been hired (contract) to do full business process analysis of the
documentation group that works in one division of a multinational telephony
manufacturer. The company is huge; the department is tiny -- but the entire
division's production relies upon their manufacturing instructions. As a
result, this tiny department is under severe pressure, unrealistically
short timelines (i.e., production lines are changed within hours, sometimes
minutes). These few people have been dealing quite well (all things
considered) with the demands that come at them from several directions
including engineering, marketing, purchasing, and manufacturing. But the
current system is inefficient. They know it has to change, but work demands
are so heavy and time-critical that they haven't had time to investigate
solutions.
The current documentation process is, to be polite, convoluted: Mac
migrating to Win95; reliance upon Oracle and QNX; using FileMakerPro, MSW,
ClarisDraw (on both platforms). Nothing is linked. Users and management are
amenable to changing software and going through the learning curve; but
they neither need nor want an enterprise-wide solution (i.e,. Eyring). That
would be _major_ over-kill.
The client also wishes to retain paper work instructions, so
paperless/virtual work instructions are not a solution. Web searches have
resulted in _lots_ on shop floor controls (statistics, bar code tracking of
products during the manfuacturing process, etc.) but that will not address
the client's needs. I've found precious little on manufacturing
instructions
Comments please:
I have considered recommending that macros and links be designed to step
the documentation writers through the process they now follow. That
wouldn't provide any real improvement, though, in the tools they use. It
would (hopefully), however, automate the lengthy process and safeguard
against them forgetting any steps in the routine.
Do you have experience linking such an array of applications?
I'm on a tight timeline, and hope you will offer the benefit of your
experience.
TIA.
Sharon.
S.L. Polsky 403.254.4376
Project Scope Solutions Group
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