DWI 4 manufacturing

Digital work instructions as a solution for increasing productcomplexity

In Flanders, there is a large group of SMEs active in the manufacturing industry, where an extensive set of activities takes place: machine or non-machine production of parts starting from raw materials, assembly of parts into a finished product, interim quality controls, logistic processes, etc. These activities individually can also be found in other sectors, so spillover is possible to, for example, the agri-food industry, the process industry and biotechnology.  The production processes used by these companies consist of multiple steps with complex operations, which need to be carried out by well-trained and experienced operators to achieve the required quality.

Furthermore, some of them face mass customisation, where smaller batches and more variation are demanded. Digital work instructions (DWI) offer a solution to deal with all these complexities and support the operator to do their job properly.

Our role?

Our role as an independent party is to map out the various digital work instruction systems and help companies and organisations in Flanders in their search for the most suitable solution for their work situation. For instance, we look at the pros and cons of different platforms and types of support and examine how to make the creation and management of work instructions as simple and efficient as possible. All the information we collect can be found in our online knowledge database, which you can find on the Wiki page.

Flanders Make, ISyE and EDM have a lot of experience on this subject from their many research projects and offer this knowledge is this project, so that companies and organisations can take faster steps towards the digital factory.