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.