Paperless Manufacturing: How to Create a Paperless Factory
Manufacturing is a complex and dynamic industry that requires constant monitoring, tracking, and optimization of various processes. From production planning and scheduling to quality control and inventory/WIP management, there are many aspects of manufacturing that rely on accurate and timely information. However, many manufacturers still use paper-based systems to record and communicate data, which can lead to inefficiencies, errors, and waste.
What Is Paperless Manufacturing?
Paperless manufacturing is a modern approach to manufacturing that uses digital technology to replace paper documents and streamline workflows. By using software, sensors, devices, and cloud computing, paperless manufacturing can capture, store, analyze, and share data in real-time, without the need for printing or filing. Paperless manufacturing can offer many benefits for manufacturers who want to improve their performance and competitiveness.
Why Paperless Manufacturing Matters
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the role of paper in our daily lives is rapidly diminishing. However, many manufacturers still use pen and paper to record what’s happening on the shop floor. According to a recent Parsable study, 79% of factory workers still rely on paper-based documentation and checklists to track work and communicate with their team.
Failing to adopt paperless manufacturing is problematic for a number of reasons, but primarily because it leads to waste, it’s costly, and the data collected often isn’t timely or accurate because it’s prone to human error.
On top of that, manual paper reporting isn’t lean. It’s a workaround that was implemented because the technology needed to support the ideal transfer of information between people and systems wasn’t available at the time. And if you don’t equip your team with the right tools, you can’t be surprised when you fail—fail to increase throughput, pass audits, and recruit the next generation of workers.
Chances are, you’ve got frontline workers on your factory floor writing down information on pieces of paper, every hour or maybe at the end of every shift. This data is then transferred to a whiteboard or production board and then entered into a spreadsheet, like Excel. An operations or plant manager likely performs calculations in the spreadsheet, creating a report that is distributed to certain team members. This is a very manual, time-ridden process and is riddled with the potential for error.
What if that entire process didn’t take up any extra time? What if there was a way to transfer information between people and systems on the frontlines?
When you look at the dynamic nature of manufacturing operations and all the stakeholders involved that need to collaborate and share information successfully, the benefits of a paperless environment extend beyond the shop floor. As manufacturers continually look at ways to cut costs and operate more efficiently, the easy answer to that is: going paperless.
You can eliminate a portion of your overhead costs, enhance productivity, and help out the environment. Going paperless may seem like a daunting task, but it’s easier to implement than you think.
Leveraging Paperless Manufacturing Software: MES
One of the key technologies that enables paperless manufacturing is a manufacturing execution system (MES). MES is a software solution that connects the shop floor with the top floor, providing visibility and control over the entire production process. MES can integrate with other enterprise systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, product lifecycle management (PLM) software, quality control software, etc., to ensure data consistency and accuracy across the organization.
MES can also provide various functionalities that support paperless manufacturing, including the following.
Electronic Work Instructions
MES can display work instructions and technical datasheets in a digital format on devices such as tablets or touchscreens, eliminating the need for paper manuals or drawings that can become outdated or inaccurate soon after they are created. MES can also update work instructions automatically based on changes in product configuration or customer requirements.
Production Reporting
When production data is recorded on paper forms or logs, it can be time-consuming as well as prone to human error, and the paper records or reports can be lost or damaged. MES collects and reports production data, such as quantities, times, costs, and quality indicators, in real-time, which eliminates the need for physical data records. MES can also provide dashboards and analytics that help managers monitor and optimize production performance.
Quality Management
MES supports quality management by providing quality plans and testing procedures that can be followed by operators or machines. MES also tracks and identifies trends in quality data, such as measurements, defects, and non-conformances, as well as enables the traceability and auditability of quality data by providing digital records of every step of the production process.
Inventory Management
Inventory management typically requires paper labels or tickets, which can easily be misplaced or misread. MES automates material transactions, such as backflushing or labeling, by using barcode scanners or RFID tags. It can also track material genealogy, batch/lot numbers, FIFO rules, and more to ensure material quality and compliance. Additionally, MES provides real-time visibility and control of overall material flow and consumption, supporting comprehensive inventory management.
Kanban Management
MES enhances Kanban management by providing Kanban boards and color-coded status indicators that show the demand and supply of materials or parts. MES can also manage co-mingled replenishment types on a dispatch list, such as pull signals or forecasts, eliminating the need for paper cards or signals that can be lost or delayed.
Attendance Management
Paper timesheets or badges can be forged or stolen. MES resolves these potential problems by providing time and attendance tracking, restricting access to certain data or functions based on user credentials, and eliminating these physical records. Overall, MES supports both attendance management and security, and role management for manufacturing operations.
Leveraging Paperless Manufacturing Software: Connected Worker & Digital Work Instructions
Another one of the key technologies driving paperless manufacturing is the connected worker platform. Connected worker solutions bridge the gap between frontline workers and the digital tools, systems, and information they need to perform their tasks accurately and efficiently. These platforms often include mobile apps, digital work instructions, real-time data capture, and interactive checklists that replace traditional paper-based processes. By digitizing task execution and standard operating procedures (SOPs), connected worker technology ensures consistency, boosts visibility into human activity on the shop floor, and enables faster response to quality, safety, and performance issues. It also integrates seamlessly with systems like MES and ERP to deliver a unified view of operations and drive continuous improvement.
Faster Reporting Means Faster Response
Connected worker technology connects frontline workers to the people, information, systems, and machines to improve productivity, quality, and safety. It allows for a deeper layer of insights that informs next steps within a work process, identifies patterns, and predicts outcomes—ultimately driving continuous improvement.
One of the keys to your success as a plant or operations manager is fully understanding the manufacturing data that’s collected. In a paperless environment, collecting and analyzing data is a lot easier. With connected work, you can improve reporting and get the data you need to analyze trends. Your team captures critical data points as they complete their work, which empowers you (as a manager) to react much faster to safety, quality, and performance trends. You’ll have fewer delays between when an issue, like unplanned downtime of a machine, is reported and when it’s handled.
By automating the handoff of data and information from the frontline to business-critical systems and management dashboards, you spend less time compiling reports and more time improving operations. This will help you make sure, at the end of the day, that you’re producing at an optimal level, your team is safe, and the quality of your product meets the required specifications.
Tap Into True Cycle Times
Your true cycle time and your actual cycle time are probably different.
It can be difficult to accurately gauge the true cycle for a part from the initial production of the item until it’s completed. You know what your constants are—the rate at which the machines were built to produce the part or product. But there’s more to producing a part than just what the machine is doing.
There’s the setup of the different machines on the line for the run, changeover activities between one product and another, and autonomous maintenance activities that can impact output. Realizing true cycle times and producing at the ideal run rate depends on the tasks that operators or mechanics perform every single day. In a paper-based environment, the only way to factor this variable into your true cycle time equation is to look at the paper trail, the recorded dates and times by your team. But again, that information may not always be accurate.
With connected work, the data behind human activity is easily accessible. Every time an action is taken, a mobile app can log granular data points like who did what, when, and how—which are critical for understanding the “why” of the run. The data enables you to put together comprehensive time studies for critical activities that help you uncover opportunities to improve everyday processes in impactful and sustainable ways.
This approach has enabled manufacturers to identify specific training needs based on trends in performance, opportunities to improve workflows, and common obstacles impacting performance. Previously, the only way to get insights like these was to host a workshop in which internal teams or even consultants would meticulously observe workers, noting every task and obstacle seen—not a very efficient or accurate process at all.
By understanding and factoring in the human impact on production, you will get a more accurate view of true cycle times, which further enables you to make your lean operating goals a reality.
This allows you to better estimate your expected finish dates for cycles, and ultimately, you can analyze areas that need improvement to help reduce overall cycle times—because you have access to all this incredible data.
Decrease in Waste
Waste in manufacturing is also known as “Muda,” which is the Japanese word that means wastefulness, uselessness, and futility. It’s easy to understand by now how paper is wasteful, and reducing your paper footprint is the first step in cutting waste and adopting a leaner approach.
In addition to waste from paper, many manufacturers are faced with wasted goods on a daily basis. Companies have quality checks and systems in place to ensure the products that leave their facility meet a certain specification and that there’s consistency in quality. But, oftentimes, the quality checks built into the system rely on documentation and revisions to those documents. When you’re living in a paper-based environment, mistakes happen and incorrect revisions or quality specifications get recorded. The result is waste.
In a paperless environment, you can prevent these errors from happening in the first place. Connected work helps your organization both in terms of work quality and end-product quality. And by capturing data about how work is performed on the frontlines and you can dynamically update standard operating procedures (SOPs), you’re able to proactively maintain and deploy quality initiatives across your entire manufacturing organization.
By digitizing and cueing up specific steps in an SOP, quality becomes consistent across teams and sites every time, and enables more up-to-date documentation that’s easily referenceable. This is particularly important to all team members to ensure proper training and quality assurance information is digitally accessible. Digitized SOPs can be centrally maintained, revisions to work instructions can be made on the fly, and then quickly rolled out across all sites. The result: better training, higher quality results, and a reduction in scrap.
Benefits of Paperless Manufacturing
By using software to support paperless manufacturing, manufacturers can enjoy a wide range of benefits.
Lower Operating Costs
Paperless manufacturing can reduce operating costs by eliminating the expenses associated with paper production, storage, and disposal. It can also free up space and resources that can be used for more productive activities.
Increased Efficiency & Productivity
By speeding up and simplifying the production process, paperless manufacturing can increase efficiency and productivity. At the same time, it can eliminate unnecessary steps or errors caused by paper handling or transmission as well as enable faster access and update of data from any device or location.
Improved Quality Control
Paperless manufacturing can improve quality control by ensuring data accuracy and consistency across the organization. It can also enable standardized procedures and checklists that prevent errors or defects as well as enhance traceability and auditability of quality data by providing digital records of every step of the production process.
Reduced Environmental Footprint
Since paperless manufacturing minimizes the use of paper and other materials that consume natural resources and generate waste, it can reduce the environmental footprint of a manufacturing operation. An additional benefit is that paperless manufacturing can also reduce carbon emissions by lowering energy consumption and transportation needs.
Better Traceability
Paperless manufacturing provides real-time visibility and control over the origin, history, and location of products or components throughout their lifecycle, which can improve traceability. It can also help manufacturing operations comply with regulations, standards, or customer requirements by providing digital records of every transaction or event that occurs in the supply chain.
Optimized Production Scheduling
With access to real-time data on demand, inventory, capacity, and performance on hand, manufacturers can optimize production scheduling as well as enable flexible and agile scheduling. Paperless manufacturing makes it easier than ever to adjust production scheduling based on changing market conditions or customer needs.
Shorter Lead Times
Paperless manufacturing can shorten lead times by reducing delays or errors in the production process and also enable faster delivery of products to customers by providing real-time tracking and monitoring of orders.
Increased Security
By protecting data from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure, paperless manufacturing can increase security. Additionally, thanks to its encryption properties and data backup workflows, paperless manufacturing helps prevent unauthorized data access or modification.
Improved Collaboration
Data sharing and communication is easy with paperless manufacturing, improving collaboration across workers, teams, or departments. Paperless manufacturing can also enable interaction and feedback through chat, video, or voice features.
What Happens If You Don’t Go Paperless in Manufacturing
Paperwork isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s actually pretty costly. And, when you examine the impact of using paper as your main way of transferring information from person-to-person or person-to-system, you’ll find there are a lot of inefficiencies:
Lost Information
If you write something down on paper, it still doesn’t exist until it’s input into your system of record. What if that sheet of paper gets lost, someone accidentally throws it away, or something gets spilled on it? The information collected is effectively useless.
Decreased Accountability
Manufacturers often run into the issue of pencil whipping when using paper—it’s when someone documents that a task or work was completed when in actuality it wasn’t. Without the right digital tools in place to get the visibility needed to understand accountability or lack thereof, pencil whipping will continue to occur.
Increased Miscommunication
Say a frontline worker raises an issue, and due to other inefficiencies in the workflow, that information gets lost. Perhaps there’s a severe wait time. Or it might be the case that no one follows up with the person who raised the issue. They’re then less likely to flag problems in the future, knowing their voice wasn’t heard. What kind of impact does that have on worker morale?
Inefficient Processes
The workflows that paper-based procedures, forms, audits, checklists, and inspections rely on have a lot of gaps and opportunities for breakdown. And there are a lot of manual processes to support that. Tasks are often completed in isolation and siloed from subsequent activities that need to occur. Ultimately, from a lean manufacturing perspective, this leads to waste, whether that’s excess motion, transport, wait times, or more.
Irrelevant Data
When you record information on paper, you’re not actually capturing data. It takes a lot of effort to turn that information documented on paper and put it into a system record for reporting. The shelf life of data is relatively short, and its value can expire before you even do something with it.
Wasted Time
What’s it like to have too much paperwork? Aggregating all the forms, checklists, audits, and inspections that are created and performed is a painstaking process. But, then you’ll have to take that information, enter it into an Excel spreadsheet, and be able to create a report or dashboard. How long does all this take? And think of all the time wasted along the way.
These inefficiencies aren’t just inconvenient; they negatively impact your manufacturing operations. Time is wasted on slow, manual paper-based processes. As a result, this directly impacts the time it takes to solve defects, hazards, and issues. It increases risk—risk of unplanned stoppages, unplanned downtime, safety incidents, and quality defects.
Using Software to Support Paperless Manufacturing
The need for a paperless environment is a big step for many manufacturers that are set in old ways—but it can’t be ignored any longer. Companies that refuse to embrace a digital environment risk falling behind. In a recent Parsable study, nearly three-quarters of frontline workers (72%) expressed no concerns about using digital tools in the workplace; they want access to digital technology to best perform in their jobs, and companies that don’t close the digital gap will risk losing talent.
Paperless manufacturing is the way of the future for manufacturers that want to boost their business and stay ahead of the competition. By using software to support paperless manufacturing, manufacturers can leverage digital technology to replace paper documents and streamline workflows. It can also offer many other benefits, such as lower operating costs, increased efficiency and productivity, improved quality control, reduced environmental footprint, better traceability, optimized production scheduling, shorter lead times, increased security, and improved collaboration.
In a fast-changing and demanding market, paperless manufacturing can help manufacturers achieve operational excellence and increased customer satisfaction. Why continue analyzing handwritten notes, standing in front of a whiteboard, or looking at Excel spreadsheets to make sense of what’s happening on your shop floor? Getting rid of your paper trail eliminates waste, non-value-added time, and potential errors that constantly occur in your manufacturing operations. It provides you with the potential to improve operational excellence and tap into your most powerful asset today—human workers. They are the change agents that will drive continuous improvement and collaboration in your paperless manufacturing environment.
Build a Paperless Factory with CAI Software
Building a paperless factory isn’t just about replacing clipboards with tablets—it’s about transforming how your team captures, shares, and responds to information. CAI’s software solutions, including powerful MES and connected worker technologies, help you move beyond outdated, error-prone manual systems. By digitizing your operations, you gain real-time insights, reduce waste, and unlock new levels of efficiency across the shop floor. If you’re ready to improve productivity, ensure compliance, and streamline decision-making, CAI gives you the tools to make paperless manufacturing a reality.
If you are looking to go paperless in manufacturing, we can help. Contact us today for a free consultation.
