Despite all the tools for digitalising and automating work, work orders remain one part of the business that resists the pressure and continues to be run in a rather old fashioned way. Most companies still use work orders on paper, which brings a series of risks such as damage and loss. Those in turn cause delays in production, which ultimately results in financial losses for the company. On top of that, paper work orders are quite inefficient, especially in larger production plants where distributing them takes a lot of time and money, considering that most companies employ additional staff whose only job is exactly that.
Problems like these can be removed completely by introducing digital work orders and automating these business processes. In Toscana all production processes are automated, work orders included. Every production employee can open a digital work order on a tablet or computer and get all the information they need. A work order that has been issued arrives in production immediately, and every change made is shown in real time.
Below we list just some of the advantages of digital work orders.
Increased efficiency
Digital work orders are available to production immediately after they are created. Unlike paper work orders, which have to be carried into production and delivered to each worker or department separately, digital work orders appear straight away on the list of the employee or department they are meant for. This is particularly useful for field workers, who are often physically far from production itself. Any change or note on a work order is immediately visible to everyone, which reduces the risk of human error. The time needed to complete a work order is considerably shorter because there is no need for additional communication - all the necessary data is visible to everyone right away. As already mentioned, digital work orders are almost impossible to damage or lose the way paper ones are, so there are no delays in delivering the project.
Work orders that are always legible
Reading someone else's handwriting can be extremely difficult, and that alone can cause catastrophic mistakes in production that cost a lot of money. Notes written on the work order itself are often crucial for the project, and it is important that everyone can read them. Using digital work orders eliminates that risk entirely.
Integration of production processes and transparency
Printing houses lose a lot of money because of miscommunication. Production workers sometimes forget to pass on all the details related to a project, for example the additional material needed to produce it, and that leads to a negative balance at the end of the project. It is therefore extremely important that all business processes are integrated and that all the necessary data is available to everyone in real time.
Take the case above: if the workers had a digital work order, the production manager could see immediately that more material was needed for the project, react accordingly and include it in the invoice sent to the customer. All production processes are shown in real time, so everyone can see which step of the work order has been reached, how much time and material has been used, and which worker is responsible for which work order. Working this way allows very precise analytics through which you can follow the real performance achieved in a given period. Although most printing houses are still sceptical about introducing digital work orders, there is no valid reason to keep using paper ones.
Besides the savings you make on paper and other consumables, there are many other benefits that will make running the business considerably easier and give you more time to devote to your customers and to the growth of the company.