Document management is complex enough in the average office environment, but when you factor in the difficulties of an industrial workplace there are additional challenges that come into play.

The unique challenges of delivering instructions and documentation to industrial workers at O-I Asia Pacific, the region’s leading manufacturer of glass packaging, have resulted in the creation of a platform known as the Work Instruction System.

Developed in partnership between O-I Asia Pacific and Eye Media Australia, this is used to provide shop floor access to documentation held in an Open Text document management system.

If you drink a beer, wine or soft drink tomorrow the chances are it is bottled in a product from one of O-I Asia Pacific’s 10 glass manufacturing plants across Australia, China, New Zealand or Indonesia. In 1998, Parent company O-I (Owens-Illinois) Inc acquired Australia’s ACI, a company with a rich history that dates back to the 1870s. O-I today employs more than 22,000 people worldwide (around 3500 in Asia Pacific) with 78 plants in 21 countries.

John Mulvany, Content Management Specialist at O-I Asia-Pacific, has led the development of a platform to provide industrial workers with simple and intuitive access to essential documents.

“When I go to the airport I can get information quickly and easily from a nearby screen/Kiosk. Our workers should have a means to get information just as fast and just as simply,” said Mulvany.

The WIS is in the process of being integrated in the company’s OpenText eDocs document management system and will be available in the Melbourne, Adelaide, Penrith, Brisbane and Auckland plant operations.

WIS provides an intelligent tool that assists in developing content to guide workers in understanding any process involved in the manufacture of glass containers.

When developing content, users of the WIS tool are provided with preset fields that add mouse-over functionality and hints on value adding content. It also helps the user to structure their content by breaking the tasks into identifiable Headings, Work Steps, Key Points and Settings.

The creation of drop down lists is automated and photographs are automatically resized to 350 pixels to keep file sizes to a minimum (350 pixels is the maximum that can be seen on a standard monitor).
It incorporates Lean Six Sigma principles for process improvement such as 'Valued Added Time' analysis.

A Welcome Screen to the O-I Asia Pacific Work Instruction System providing shopfloor access to an eDocs Document Management system.

WIS documentation is accessed by plant workers via dedicated PC touchscreen kiosks that ensure that it is always only two clicks to navigate to any Work Instruction/Procedure.

The kiosks are pre-programmed to stay logged-in around the clock with an identification that knows their physical location, through the Plant Access Channel Configuration built within eDocs. This knowledge is used to ensure that only documents relevant to that particular location are displayed on the screen.

This provides simple access to plant procedures for processes, safety and environment directly on the shop floor. It helps to ensure the retention of accreditation requirements, e.g. Safety Certification, Environment Certification and Quality Certification.

The kiosks are also used to provide employee training at the work station and provide ‘on-site’ reference material for Kaizan/6 Sigma indicatives.