Posting Of Work Instructions at Job Site

To what level do work instructions have to be posted at job sites? If employees are "trained" in their position / have years of work experience, do detailed job descriptions have to be posted at EVERY job site (office personnel and manufacturing sites)?

The amount of information that you want to include in your work instructions should be at a level that would make an operator feel comfortable about the job that they are about to perform for the first time. It will also be there for everyone else to use and reference again later.

You can have these documents controlled and at central locations throughout your facility. As long as they are readily available and accessible whenever they are needed should suffice.

Am I on the right track? Does this help you in any way? If not I will try again.

Later!!

------------------

[Marc]

The point here I believe is that you have to make a judgement call on what you think is appropriate and be ready to back up your position. I know the QS folks are much more picky about this.

This is one area I have found companies vastly over-document. They were getting along quite well, thank you, but when they went for ISO or QS they didn't know where to stop. And I saw some QS auditors (for a while a few years back) who were rabid that 'work instructions' had to exist and had to be posted at the operartor's station. I even saw an ISO auditor go ape s__t (circa 1996). There was an assembly line with folks working on each side. The auditor expected work instructions posted where the assemblers could 'readily' see them. They were behind them. The auditor 'suggested' that it would be more appropriate if the instructions were posted behind the person on the other side of the line (ahem....). OJT is typically accepted in lieu of work instruction - depends upon how complex the job is. But again, you have to make a determination on what you have and where you 'post' it - and then be ready to 'discuss' your rational. One method of 'proving' your determinations are correct is to cite nonconformance reports (internal and external). If you have no returns whose root cause is improper assembly (as an example), it is evident your system is functioning as planned and that your 'work instructions' or OJT or combination of the two are working.

This is a real subjective topic.

[Marc]

One more comment - content. This is real open as well. For example, say you have automated assembly. A 'work instruction' posted at a hopper for components is going to be pretty short if all you have to do is dump them in. As opposed to a 'work instruction' which an operator uses for a complex assembly.

I have seen a lot of companies where their router contained all necessary information for each work station.

Don't over document. Think about what you are doing and why.

[Laura M]

I've gone head to head with an (bullheaded) auditor that insisted "readily accessible" was posted in front of the operator as well. My contention was that they are not going to "read it" every time they make a part so what's the point...lets be realistic. Boundary samples, anything they may reference on an individual basis, maybe, but evidence of OJT, and an instruction in a "employee information center" in the department, and evidence that the operator is performing to the instruction should be sufficient. Besides, if you can prove that your method of "readily accessible" works, the auditors can't tell you "how" to run your biz, right?

I think he wanted to give us an N/C because a spec was referenced in an instruction. For document control purposes, that spec was located in a document control center and took about 15 minutes to retrieve. He said that wasn't "readily accessible." I still would contend that it depends on why the spec was needed....to make the parts, or, for example, so the operators would know what spec to tell the lab to use for inspection...15 minutes may be sufficient retrieve time. I wouldn't think that the 3rd party auditor should be allowed to pass that judgement. If you look at the corrective action you would implement to reduce the "retrieval time" (and worsen the document control situation) it would generate alot of non-value added work. Auditors shouldn't write N/C's that generate NVA work!

[Marc]

I've run into that stupid 'readily available' horse stuff. In one implementation there were documents at another location in another city (not 'work instructions') which the auditor deemed 'not readily available'. He finally shut up when we called and had a sample document FAXed. It arrived in about 30 minutes.

When addressing 'readily available', be sure to consider the situation as a whole. I saw one auditor get wired about electronic documents a few years back. The network crashed, so the issue evolved to include questions like 'how frequently does the network crash' and such.

Thanks for the input. Think we are OK. Appreciate your comments.

I agree we must be reasonable. Allow me to interject that as auditors, our first requirement is to assure "compliance". I can't tell you how many work-site documentation audits I have performed where the operator was not aware of revision(s) to their documentation because they had not been reviewed prior to activity.