Via Got Boondoggle? Shorter Text for Visual Work Instructions by Steven Blackwell:
The line worker may not even read text that seems excessive. We have spent the last eight years observing line workers using visual work instructions and asking them if they read the text. If the text is a short sentence, the answer is usually “yes.” If the text is more than one sentence long, the answer is usually “no.”
Another recent post, Poka-Yoke Assembly (also prompted by Got Boondoggle?), also discusses the importance of well written (short) instructions.
In writing minimal text, we recommend the sentence structure, “Verb NOUN with NOUN using NOUN.” An example is given in the following illustration, “Cut CABLE to LENGTH as shown using SCISSORS.” That includes 8 words, as opposed to 82 in the original example, only 10% of the original length.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:05 am
Much more often “policy” (which might be similar to standard work - but I think standard work really requires a system that is missing in places where “standard work” is not standard at all) is not followed in general - everyone does there own thing…
July 4th, 2007 at 7:30 am
“Simple pictures make it very obvious what to do (and even includes a time stamp showing how long into the process you are - which shows you the total time it will take at one simple glance 1 minute and 36 seconds)…”
November 28th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
It is not ok to expect people to think the way you want them to. You have to understand how people will react and create solutions based on that…
February 24th, 2008 at 8:58 am
“The results were so dramatic that they weren’t sure whether to believe them: the ten-day line-infection rate went from eleven per cent to zero…”