Work instructions: the document that sits where the work happens

Work instructions describe one operation in the detail the person doing it needs: how to change the blade, how to pack the fragile order, how to run the month-end close in the accounting system. They sit a level below a standard operating procedure, which covers a whole task, and they are read in a different posture — standing at a bench or mid-process, not at a desk with time to read.

That posture is the design brief. A work instruction that requires scrolling, logging in, or reading two paragraphs of context before the first action has already failed, however accurate it is.

What good work instructions look like

• One operation per document. If the title needs an "and", split it.
• One page, ideally one side. Two sides is the practical ceiling for something read while working.
• Numbered steps, imperative verbs, one action each: "Loosen the two front bolts", not "the bolts should be loosened".
• A photograph or diagram at every step where words are ambiguous — and none where they are not. Decorative images cost attention.
• Safety and quality warnings placed immediately before the step they apply to, never collected at the end.
• The tools, parts and settings needed, listed at the top so nobody starts and then walks away.
• A visible version number and date, large enough to read at a glance, so an old printout is obviously old.
• Who to ask when reality does not match the instruction. This line prevents more improvisation than any warning.

The most useful addition to most work instructions is a photograph of what wrong looks like next to what right looks like. People match patterns far faster than they parse sentences, and the wrong-example picture is what stops the error that the correct description never quite prevented.

Writing and proving them

1. Record the operation being done by someone experienced — video on a phone is enough — and write the steps from the recording rather than from memory.
2. Draft one action per line, then read it aloud while doing the task. Anything you cannot follow hands-busy needs rewording.
3. Photograph the steps that need photographs, from the operator's viewpoint rather than from across the room.
4. Test with someone who has not done the operation. Watch, do not help, and note every hesitation — hesitations mark missing steps more reliably than questions do.
5. Number the version and date it before it goes anywhere near the floor.
6. Print, laminate if the environment is wet or dirty, and post it at the point of use rather than in a folder.
7. Set the review trigger: any change of tool, material, supplier or layout means the instruction is checked, not just the annual review.

Paper at the bench, one file behind it

The uncomfortable truth about work instructions is that paper usually wins at the point of use — no screen to wake, no gloves to remove, readable across a bench. The risk is version drift: yesterday's printout stays pinned up long after the file changed. The way out is to keep a single authoritative file, print from it, and make the version obvious on the page so a stale copy is caught by eye.

Ettex PDF suits this well. It works in the browser on an existing PDF: create and detect fillable fields, annotate with highlight, note and stamp tools, freehand ink for marking up a photograph, reorder, rotate, delete, merge and split pages to assemble a set, and stamp page numbers and headers in bulk — which is the cheap way to put a version number on every page of a set at once. A revision history means a correction does not destroy the previous state. Where the instruction needs a sign-off that it has been read and understood, Ettex Signature adds a signature with an audit trail, and the prose version behind the printed sheet lives in Ettex Docs with comments and version history.

Ettex has no work-instruction module: no controlled-document register, no automatic distribution of the current revision to stations, no acknowledgement tracking across a team, no template library. The discipline of printing from one file and checking the version by eye is yours to keep. Under a standard that mandates controlled document distribution, use a system built for it.

Failure modes worth recognising

• Written by the expert for the expert, skipping the steps that only look obvious after five years.
• Prose paragraphs instead of numbered actions, which cannot be resumed after an interruption.
• Photographs taken from the wrong viewpoint, showing the machine rather than what the operator sees.
• Warnings gathered at the end, where they are read after the step they were meant to prevent.
• No version on the page, so nobody can tell whether the sheet on the wall is current.
• Never tested on a newcomer, so the instruction documents the author's assumptions rather than the operation.

Work instructions succeed on format as much as on content: one operation, one page, one action per step, pictures where words fail, and a version you can read from a metre away.