by Desiree Schnoor

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, video is worth a million. Not only that, but video is worth 1,000 languages. In fact, there are 6,500 languages spoken in the world today, and video can speak to each one of them. 

​Let Video Work Instructions help you reach your employees of all languages, overseas manufacturers and the global market. Video works better for our brains and can cover the world. 

by Desiree Schnoor
The current U.S. unemployment rate is only around 4%, and President Trump reports millions of jobs created within the last few years. But, with the ever-increasing advances in technology and automation, is there real danger of robots stealing our jobs? Will automation eventually take over for everyone? As technology advances, there is no question that machines can out-produce humans, and companies who don’t implement automated processes won’t be able to compete with companies that do.

Consequently, by 2026, nearly 1 million Americans will see their occupations vanish entirely and will have to gain new skills to meet the changing demands of the workplace. A recent report shows that even though some people will be transitioned easily to new occupations, ultimately, about one third of all employees will need to be trained for new positions. That translates to 375 million people re-trained for work in new occupational categories.  This same report says that governments would need to have some type of infrastructure in place to offer financial support to workers transitioning from one occupation to another.  

That sounds weighty, complicated and expensive. But it doesn’t have to be. A quality engineering company called Virtual QE offers a unique way their Video Work Instructions can retain jobs and easily train workers for new ones- a revolutionary answer to the automation dilemma.

This is how Virtual QE sees it; as more and more machines and processes become automated, there will need to be revisions and repairs- repairs that will need to be completed by people. In the past, only those who had training in electronics and software would have the knowledge to repair complex machines, but Video Work Instructions can quickly and easily cross-train, say, cashiers to fix kiosks, for example. Instead of using countless hours and dollars on traditionally training employees to move from one occupation to another, Video Work Instructions make the jump from cashier to kiosk repair person easy.

Video Work Instructions are video training tutorials showing a first-person view of an expert performing tasks, giving employers increased flexibility to train any employee to do any task, quickly and competently.

What if your workforce could eliminate anyone being untrained, unskilled and unqualified to do any task, overnight? With Video Work Instructions, you can.
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Watch out, robots. 

by Desiree Schnoor

One of the most urgent yet elusive problems manufacturing companies face today is how to prevent the knowledge of their most expert employees from walking out the door with them when they retire. Just ask the managers at many manufacturing plants with empty work stations, unable to complete tasks because no other worker knows how to complete that task, and they can’t find others to hire that do.

Loss of knowledge spans job sectors and continents, not just all around the world, but even into outer space. Indeed, those in the “aerospace industry recognize that the knowledge base that created the space shuttle, landed men on the moon, and designed the cruise missile may be lost as employees retire.”

Indeed, when the right knowledge is harnessed, captured and reproduced, the possibilities are endless, but when critical knowledge is lost, the results are devastating.
Shawn Findlater, the CEO of Virtual QE, a quality engineering company says, “The need for quality standards, including the effective management of knowledge, to be in place are so crucial, in fact, that the aerospace industry has been charged with finding a solution and updating their quality standards. We offer that solution”.

So, how do Video Work Instructions raise quality and on-time delivery scores for companies?

First, let’s look at video instructions’ impact on quality. A manufacturing quality score is basically reflective of the number of bad parts produced. Many low quality scores can be traced back to a lack of a truly standardized process, one that reduces errors. All plants have employees with varying skill and experience levels, which allows for more production error.

Video Work Instructions provide a standardized process by recording an expert technician modeling a task, thereby capturing the correct process entirely. This method diminishes the impacts of having employees with various skill levels because all employees automatically perform the task the same way the expert does, therefore reducing error. Video instructions also allow employees to pause and replay the video, to further ensure higher quality scores.

Video Work Instructions themselves have “built-in” quality raising aspects Virtual QE calls “learning optimization”. The first-person view of the expert technician, training within industry and other components all add to a learning experience that our brain prefers and help us perform better. Video Work Instructions also incorporate ques, reduced video speed and tips to avoid errors and increase production time and yield.

How is on-time delivery improved when using Video Work Instructions? The biggest way is because managers can hire more employees. Since Video Work instructions make training faster and more efficient, more people can do more tasks faster. This ensures more delivery schedules will be met. Some reasons for delay, such as having to remake parts because of incorrect assembly are also avoided because video instructions ensure higher consistency and replicability. Employee turnover is greatly reduced because workers feel competent in their work. Cross-training employees is seamless with video, and helps meet delivery schedules. Video Work Instructions correlate to more production and more volume for your company. 

by Desiree Schnoor

Video work instructions are setting the tone for U.S. manufactures by revitalizing the way their technicians and managers are able to do their jobs. Workers learn better, faster and cheaper and managers are able to hire and train more workers faster, and better. Video work instructions harness the knowledge of skilled technicians, reproducing what they know and how they do tasks for both new and existing employees to view and reproduce. Consequently, one of the most important and often urgent need for Video Work Instructions is preventing the knowledge and experience of skilled technicians disappearing with a worker. This is especially true for companies with soon-retiring senior technicians.

Virtual QE is now offering Video Insurance, options for companies who would like to record and store their Video Work Instructions for use in the near future.  

The first option, consists of a monthly fee for storing a company’s completed Video Work Instruction until they are ready to implement at their facility. This option offers the higher monthly charge of the two options; however the video instruction implementation price is established and locked in at the time of your commitment.

Similarly, the second option consists of a monthly fee for storing your completed Video Work Instruction until you are ready to implement at your facility, and costs less monthly. This option is not price locked, so when you are ready to implement, your price will be whatever current market pricing is at that time.

Who might take advantage of Video Insurance now so they can implement Video Work Instructions in the near future? Companies that don’t currently have an expert employed but are looking for one. They might not yet have someone working in a task that is an expert, or their expert might have retired or quit before they had a chance to record his or her skill. Those who lack an expert technician don’t have anyone to record the task, therefore cannot make a video work instruction at this time.
Secondly, growing companies working on contract basis would have already built all costs into projected profits, so purchasing Video Work Instructions now would eat into their profit margins. It would make most financial sense for them to wait until next big project.
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Also, companies with tight cash flow margins on products would have difficulty justifying the purchase of Video Work Instructions right now. Similarity, it may not be the right time yet for companies that are doing short runs of different parts.
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For more information and pricing please visit virtualqe.com 

Video Work Instructions give manufacturing technicians answer to increasing employee engagement: a new day, a new task.
by Desiree Schnoor

Manufacturing technicians who work, doing the same tasks day after day and year after year understandably lack motivation, morale and overall job satisfaction. Workers can become bored, slowing production, or become overly confident in their tasks, increasing risk of injury.

However, there are some positives to employees doing repetitive tasks, including becoming an expert at the task, growing their tribal knowledge, and attaining a high level of replicability and overall production rates.

A recent Gallup article reports that only 25% of manufacturing employees are engaged at work- well below the 33% national average, and the lowest levels reported in any sector. To increase employee engagement, “Great manufacturing leaders figure out the amount of control they can give back to the employees, which allows them some choice in potentially rote procedures.”

The problem is, in industries like manufacturing where many employees have prescribed tasks and spend most or all their time in repetitive tasks, there is not much room for flexibility.

One effort being implemented at some companies is cross-training select employees to learn new tasks. This includes moving workers from their current stations and training them part-time on new tasks. This increases employee engagement and satisfaction, but this method is not possible for all employees as it would greatly slow overall production, and is not time or resource efficient. 

Now, a quality engineering company called Virtual QE has developed a new and better way to offer flex work and increase employee engagement in manufacturing. Video Work Instructions train technicians using a first-person view of an expert technician completing a task. This drastically reduces training time for new tasks, in turn, allowing managers the ability to offer technicians station mobility. Both new and veteran technicians can learn new tasks quickly and correctly, and tribal knowledge is captured for an infinite number of employees to use, an infinite number of times. Video Work Instructions do away with traditional step-by-step work instructions, so technicians avoid frustrations, revisions, errors and reduce training time.

With video, technicians are able to diversify their work by quickly and easily learning new tasks at new stations, and gain increased morale and overall job satisfaction, day in and day out. 

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Company has solution for reviving manufacturing's economic impact on
your state.
by Desiree Schnoor

​The US manufacturing industry is facing the unique challenges of an aging workforce and unfilled positions. Many skilled and knowledgeable workers have years of experience, but will be retiring soon. In fact, baby boomers make up about one third of the entire US workforce, and a staggering 10,000 are retiring every day.

In the healthiest annual gain since 1995, the manufacturing sector added 37,000 jobs in the 12 month period leading up to July 2018. Nevertheless, manufacturing “represented 11.6 percent of U.S. GDP in 2017, down from 12.3 percent in 2011 and 28.1 percent in 1953.” Indeed manufacturing is not represented as it once was in the US.

Dan, a manufacturing plant manager in a rural town in middle America, is facing a problem. His hiring and production are stagnant. The steady employment growth he had a decade ago has plateaued and he knows some of his senior technicians will be retiring soon. Having trouble finding the right applicants, and sometimes any applicants to fill positions that require just one year of manufacturing experience has left Dan searching for a way to fill his empty work stations. Facing the upcoming retirement of two of his best welders, he is trying to figure out how to prevent their knowledge and expertise from walking out the door with them. Dan knows there must be a way to get more people working better, faster and safer.

Virtual QE is a quality engineering company that has a solution for Dan and all companies following ISO Standards, including the automotive, aerospace, medical device, pharmaceutical and oil and gas industries: Video Work Instructions. Replacing traditional text instructions that are hard to read and understand, Video Work Instructions  meet the direct needs of filling open positions and boosting production. Manufacturers who use Video Work Instructions to train employees are able to hire unskilled workers, who then perform like skilled technicians on day one- a solution that instantly reduces unemployment, drives productivity, and increases retention.  

The Virtual QE process is as fast as it is practical. Wearing camera safety glasses, a company’s senior technician records first-person video while performing a complicated task or using a specific piece of machinery. This footage is sent to Virtual QE where it is reviewed and edited, into a step-by-step best practices training video. Within 72 hours, the video is delivered and ready to be used to train unskilled workers to complete high level tasks.

How well do Video Work Instructions work? Recently, at a plant demonstration, Virtual QE asked a technician, to watch a Video Work Instruction and then complete a novel task. He correctly completed the task, that usually takes 24-hours, in 1 hour. Results like these mean a lot of time and money saved for manufactures. 

That's not all. The effects of Video Work Instructions reach as far as your state’s economy.

How? By providing a practical, fast and cost-effective way to remove the constraint of rising labor costs, Virtual QE challenges foreign based plants to move back to the US, and ultimately bring more manufacturing jobs to your state.

With no system overhaul, and instant implementation, Video Work Instructions are a fast and easy training tool. Virtual QE utilizes a unique combination of what they call “learning optimization” - a mix of brain science research and quality engineering experience, to create video learning tools that our brains prefer.

The September 2018 US unemployment rate was 3.7%, compared to a decade ago, when unemployment was 7.2%. This is an improvement, but Video Work Instructions could drive this number even lower. Video learning is second nature to millennials, the ones who will be filling many open manufacturing positions. Millennials, although less skilled, have many working years ahead of them. A recent study showed that millennials are driven by career development, which means they seek positions they like and can grow in, they are willing to change jobs often, and sometimes go back to school for specific skills training. Essentially, they want to grow and perform well. Video Work Instructions are designed to give millennials what they need to be successful because training with Video Work Instructions is 10 times faster than traditional work instructions, and almost immediately levels the playing field between new and seasoned workers.

Shawn Findlater, the creator of Virtual QE’s Video Work Instructions has this to say about the impacts of Video Work Instructions on employees: “With Video Work Instructions, what we are seeing is they (employees) are very confident, they can perform the operation, they see themselves giving value, which is very important to especially millennials. They want to see value coming in day one, and understand the path within which they can grow. If things are ambiguous and they are not sure if they can perform, they are going to get discouraged and they are going to leave the company.”

During the past few decades, many US companies moved their labor plants to other countries to maintain lower labor costs, however, Video Work Instructions boldly gives reason for companies to move their plants back to the US in two ways. First, moving plants back to the US would mobilize local work forces because companies could fill their positions with workers previously unqualified for skilled jobs in that area, those with no manufacturing skills or experience. Secondly, since companies can hire unskilled workers and pay them a lower wage than they pay their skilled workers, and still reap the same production levels, this keeps labor costs low, puts people to work and fuels local economies.

Let’s go back to Dan. His company implemented Video Work Instructions 6 months ago, and since day one, many technicians, both new and experienced, have been able to complete tasks they have never done before, correctly the first time, much faster than they would have using traditional work instructions. In fact, production time on certain tasks has gone from a day’s work to about an hour. Dan’s rural town is on its way to becoming a booming manufacturing city, with one new plant coming to the area soon. Dan has been able to hire people who were previously unemployable in manufacturing, and is now able to focus his efforts on other aspects of the company.

by Desiree Schnoor
Did you know that when you aren’t happy at work, other areas of your life suffer too? In fact, work and life satisfaction tend to go hand in hand, for better or for worse. Let's look on the bright side; we work more creatively, collaboratively and effectively when we are happy at work- gaining a 12% increase in productivity when people are happy. Our brains work better when we are feeling positive, and are actually able to problem solve better.

Video Work Instructions are an effective way to help employees do their job better, like it more, and feel good about it. Virtual QE focuses on the “quality” in quality engineering by providing products and services that help you feel better about your work and your life. 

Video Work Instructions: Ergonomics for your brain
​by Desiree Schnoor
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When you think of ergonomics, you might think of the benefits a standing desk has on your back, or how good it feels when your fancy toothbrush fits perfectly in your hand. Ergonomics aims to help our bodies function as best as best they can in our environments. But what about our brains?

Virtual QE has revolutionized the manufacturing world with Video Work Instructions. Video work Instructions are to brain ergonomics as standing desks are to body ergonomics.

Shawn Findlater, the CEO of Virtual QE recognizes the ease and speed that video work instructions give manufacturing employees. “When we ask a manufacturing employee to complete a task they have never completed, sometimes even using parts they have never seen before, by watching a first-person video of an expert completing that task, they do it easily and correctly. They know that watching a video is easy and efficient. They like it and their managers like it.”

Apparently, their brains like it too. The traditional way of paper and picture work instructions are outdated not just because they are messy, revisions take forever, and they crowd the workstation, but because our brains actually work better- processing information easier, faster more accurately when viewing video; not text and still pictures.

When we are learning any task, if the information is perceived as words, our brains actually have to recognize letters, then words, then translate them into usable information. That information is stored and translated into a sequence of steps. While each piece of information is tiny and these processes take milliseconds, the time adds up, and when error or missteps happen along the way, the process must start over. Not only does this increase production time, it increases our cognitive load, causing us more mental strain and fatigue.

When creating video work instructions, Virtual QE takes all this science into consideration, as well as other factors like, first person view, quality inputs and other factors, to give manufacturers and employees a learning tool that our brains love.