Work instructions as a medium to transfer knowledge are probably the worst and most ineffective choice any organization could ever make.
Consider these things....
1) Work instructions are inflexible, ridged, yet they are used in fluid processes containing variation.... How inept is that?
2) Work instructions attempt to transfer knowledge about complicated subject mater to an operator using complicated text and graphics, mixed with engineering terminology. Imagine attempting to write a work instruction for how to set a broken bone... yet many work instruction I observe during audits, fit into this very category. Many organizations assume the operator can learn how to assemble a complicated product because they provide their employees complicated instructions. There is a vast difference between comprehensive and complicated.
3) Work instructions for the most part ignore the set of basic skills, employees come preloaded with.... If your employees already understand that Red means stop why not take advantage of such learned skill and incorporate it visually into your processes? as opposed to attempting to recreate the wheel with something more complicated and written in work instruction text.
4) Its not uncommon (especially today) for work instructions to be outdated, or scribbled upon with red line revisions.
5) Organizations require employees to read their work instructions but never allow time in the operational process for the employee to effectively accomplish that task. I observe this issue in every audit I perform.
6) Most work instructions are never validated as being effective prior to use, I can state with certainty this applies to 95% of work instructions. Most are approved but most are never validated.
7) Most organizations (especially manufacturing) focus their employees on the work tasks contained within a cell only. Rarely do they train their employees about the whole of the product and how their work contributes and combines to become the whole, which is then provided to the consumer. Most assume their employees to be soddish and therefore only able to understand what occurs within a work cell... which shows how incapable most management is
8) Most organizations refuse to accept that employees and their training and well being are more akin to gardening, One needs to manage, cultivate and weed continuously to keep a garden healthy and strong. There is no automatic pilot, this especially applies to using work instructions as a means to usurp training.
Organizations assume their employees to be in the wrong when they don't follow a work instruction. Rarely do they ever ask an employee why, most just seek to punish the employee for a work instruction which fits in one or all of the categories listed above. Remember it was Deming who stated that Management owns the process (not the employee). and computer geeks who stated "Garbage in equals Garbage out" both of these apply to work instructions. As Deming stated .... Management its your process, it its not working correctly .... its your mess, you created it.
Employees don't come to work expecting to do a poor job, they want to do well, they want to excel, therefore is the program management provides setup to allow them that to be successful at achieving that opportunity?
Are employees not following instructions because the instructions are invalid or incapable or inaccurate or to complicated or to lengthy or to wordy or attempting to replace effective training?
Answer this question ..... Does that piece of paper flapping in the breeze or contained within a binder or sitting on a computer screen, which you call a work instruction, CONTROL a process?............ If the answer to that question is NO DOES NOT...... then you are on the right path