How to deal with operators who fail to follow work instruction?

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element79

#32
Great article, Jennifer! Thanks! :applause:

How do you approach this if instead of work instruction, it's company policy; and instead of an operator, it's a manager who's not following it? (The particular company policy is related to GMP and ISO 9001:2008.)

I've personally approached the manager in question to ask why s/he does not do it, and have also brought it up several times with upper management. As it still persists after almost a year now, I now file this under bias and lack of leadership.

I feel that because there is a huge gap in documentation (which we're only just recently started to fill) and this one manager knows the inner workings of the operations with his eyes closed, the upper management has chosen to ignore his behavior. Employees who previously follow those particular company policies are now disregarding them as well, following the example from this particular manager. :mad:
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#33
Great article, Jennifer! Thanks! :applause:

How do you approach this if instead of work instruction, it's company policy; and instead of an operator, it's a manager who's not following it? (The particular company policy is related to GMP and ISO 9001:2008.)

I've personally approached the manager in question to ask why s/he does not do it, and have also brought it up several times with upper management. As it still persists after almost a year now, I now file this under bias and lack of leadership.

I feel that because there is a huge gap in documentation (which we're only just recently started to fill) and this one manager knows the inner workings of the operations with his eyes closed, the upper management has chosen to ignore his behavior. Employees who previously follow those particular company policies are now disregarding them as well, following the example from this particular manager. :mad:
Thank you for your kind words. :D

What kind of work instruction is this? For what system? Is the outcome poor because the manager is not following the work instruction?

There are a few approaches.

1) Do nothing, when externally audited the CB would happily write an action request.

2) Write a CAR and give it to the manager's superior. If you do this it had better be important. So first I would seriously consider if this manager's method is actually okay and the work instruction is not needed or can be loosened.

3) Pull back and regroup. You have cited a huge gap in documentation. What makes you think the documentation is important? You described the manager knows the process very well. We generally make documentation to standardize important activities where the outcome could suffer without the standardization or if people do not know very well what to do. If this is 9001, let us consider that in 2015 we will likely see a standard that does not specifically require a lot of the procedures but tells us we need to address risk with controlled processes and documentation as required to do that. If you are working to 14001 or 18001, the risk consideration is already there (as well as no mention of "documented procedure" except in 4.4.6).

I hope this helps!
 

kzachawk

Involved In Discussions
#34
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
 
Last edited:

John Broomfield

Staff member
Super Moderator
#35
You reinforce the case for designing processes so they cannot be done the wrong way. Engaging the workers in mistake-proofing their tasks.

The documented work instruction could be seen as the first step and then risk management determines the pace of ongoing mistake-proofing.

Many management systems used to be over documented and work instructions were ignored as a consequence while many tasks were completed well by competent employees.
 
#36
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
I suggest that management need to follow the Maslow theory of need to resolve this type of issue. Management should train the people to achieve there needs by doing the work and not to being idle at workplace.
If they don't follow then there are four steps suggested in ancient literature which is SAAM, DAAM, DAND & BHED (discuss, give motivation (additional reward), punish & kick out)
 

Pancho

wikineer
Super Moderator
#37
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
Don’t throw out the baby!

Work instructions CAN be great for knowledge transfer, for training and for improvement. They are a document. Documents are where knowledge becomes explicit. If you don’t like “work instruction”, use procedure, tutorial, training note, manual, standard or recipe. Whatever you do, do not live with tacit knowledge only. That would be a work instruction for poor quality.

Documents are seldom written well initially, even when the author is the most knowledgeable person about the relevant process. Not only is one brain’s knowledge always incomplete, but such brain is likely to be much better at doing than at writing.

If you want useful documents, you’ve got to let them evolve (improve continuously). Provide the systems to do so: software, training, culture. Encourage and empower your employees to edit (improve) your documents. Provide accountability. Recognize valuable contributions. After a while, your documents will be nuanced rather than rigid and they will continue to improve beyond anyone’s expectations.

A work instruction will never become engrossing reading, but no novel will give you the satisfaction of discovering stuff you didn’t know about your processes and your organization from perusing good, collaborative documented information in your mature system. Only competition in that regard may come from shipping good product and making money.
 

bobdoering

Stop X-bar/R Madness!!
Trusted Information Resource
#38
Also be careful about direct supervision that might have encouraged them to take a shortcut. "They don't really need that" or "We have always done it that way" are still alive in the land of urban legend.
 

bobdoering

Stop X-bar/R Madness!!
Trusted Information Resource
#39
Don't forget about the ton of scrap you made by an unauthorized "shortcut" that somebody did. They thought they were doing you a favor by making more parts per hour, but the change wasn't verified. Something the operator didn't think of comes back to bite everyone. I actually have seen such shortcuts like an operator sampling instead of doing 100% per work instructions "to get it done faster". No. That didn't help.
 
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