Getting It Right the First Time: How Digital Work Instructions Are Changing the Shop Floor

For manufacturers running lean crews and tight schedules, small process breakdowns rarely stay small. A misread step, an outdated instruction sheet, or a new hire without enough guidance can lead to rework, scrap, or a missed deadline. The question isn't whether these issues will happen. It's how much they cost when they do.

Visual Job Execution (VJES) was built to close that gap.

What VJES Does

VJES delivers real-time work instructions, images, and videos directly to the shop floor, giving operators exactly what they need at each step of a job. Rather than relying on printed instructions that can go out of date or get left at the wrong workstation, operators always see the current, approved version of the job in front of them.

VJES works as a stand-alone system, but integrating it with your Infor ERP takes it further, turning it into a full data capture and traceability tool. Every step, every completion, and every performance metric ties directly back to your ERP, giving you visibility into shop floor operations you didn't have with paper.

Why It Matters

Getting a job right the first time isn't just about avoiding mistakes. It's about consistency across shifts, faster ramp-up for new employees, and confidence that the work being done matches the standard it's supposed to.

That shows up in the numbers. Manufacturers using VJES have seen:

• Training time reduced from 1 week to 3 days
• Quality scores improved from 68 to 93
• 100% first-pass yield maintained for 8 consecutive months

These aren't small gains. A new hire who's productive in days instead of weeks changes how a plant handles turnover. A quality score jump like that reflects fewer defects, less rework, and fewer surprises downstream.

Built for Infor Environments

For manufacturers running Infor LN, Baan, LX, or BPCS...

For years, paper work instructions have been a standard part of manufacturing. They were easy to distribute, simple to update, and familiar to operators.

But manufacturing has changed. Products are more complex, customer expectations keep rising, and as experienced employees retire, new hires often need to become productive faster than ever before. As a result, many manufacturers are rethinking how information is delivered on the shop floor.

The Challenge with Paper

Paper work instructions create several common challenges:

• Multiple versions of the same document
• Outdated instructions remaining at workstations
• Time spent searching for the correct information
• Longer training periods for new employees
• Inconsistent processes between operators

On their own, none of these seem like a major problem, but together they add up to real quality and productivity issues.

A Shift Toward Digital Work Instructions

One trend we're seeing across the manufacturers we work with is a move toward digital work instructions. Rather than relying on printed documents, operators receive the latest approved instructions directly at their workstation, along with supporting images, videos, and other visual aids. This helps ensure every operator is working from the same information, every time.

Manufacturers making this shift are also gaining new capabilities they didn't have with paper: capturing production data directly from the shop floor, improving traceability, and supporting standardized work across shifts and facilities.

What Manufacturers Are Reporting

In a recent study on employee training and trends in manufacturing, the following results were obtained:

1. Improved Learning Retention: People retain about 80% of what they see and do, compared to only 20% of what they read. This makes VWIs, which combine visuals and hands-on action, significantly more effective for training.
2. Reduced Errors: VWIs help minimize mistakes by providing clear, step-by-step guidance. Companies that have switched from traditional text-heavy instructions to visual formats report a notable decrease in errors, leading to better quality assurance. 
3. Faster Onboarding: New employees can reach full productivity much quicker with VWIs. Some organizations have cut training time by nearly 50%, allowing workers to learn at their own pace with minimal supervision.

​Every manufacturer relies on a few core metrics to manage operations: efficiency, productivity, capacity, and labor and equipment utilization. These benchmarks are used worldwide to assess performance and process effectiveness.

What if you could...

You would be hard-pressed to completely miss the stories in the news recently about quality issues in manufacturing. The crux of the issue has been a complete focus on production and a lack of focus on quality. Yes, it is a wonderful thing to get the goods out the door, but when you’re sacrificing quality, what good is it really?

There are specifications for production for a reason. Engineering exists for a reason. If products are not built according to exact design specifications, scrap is likely to go up, rework goes up, customer returns and/or service requests go up, and customer satisfaction and overall customer confidence in your product plummets.

Is all of that worth it to get the good out the door in the shortest amount of time possible?

Every manufacturer relies on a few core measurements to manage their operations. Measurements like efficiency, productivity, capacity, labor and equipment utilization are used by manufacturers across the globe to benchmark performance and assess the effectiveness of processes.

Quality needs to be part of that mix. Because measurements like efficiency and productivity don’t necessarily mean high quality, incorporating ways to ensure quality from the start can help to eliminate waste and rework.

Manufacturing quality is achieved through quality control using documented, repeatable, and measurable processes.

What if you could incorporate quality control in every operation, at every work center to not only ensure high-quality finished goods but also simultaneously train high-quality operators?

Introducing Crossroads’ ERP independent solution, VJES (Visual Job Execution Software)...