For an industrial company, using the video format to transmit know-how or operating procedures is an excellent way of ensuring business continuity and sustainability.
Employee know-how is a company asset. It is dynamic and evolves with time and the people who make up the company at any given moment. However, they rarely circulate effectively within the SME and ETI sectors of industry.
Could this be due to a culture of oral transmission that is still too strongly entrenched?
In the manufacturing industry in particular, the long-term survival of the business depends on the proper implementation and transmission of know-how by employees.
Industrial know-how" may refer to manual operations in production, personal organizational routines in maintenance, or machine settings in the workshop, to name but a few. Although it is possible to measure a company's exposure to risk according to the criticality of each skill in relation to its activity (based on various criteria - financial impact, frequency of use, etc.), all too often these skills are only known and mastered by the employees who use them on a regular basis.
For a company in the industry, using the video format to transmit know-how, processes, operating procedures or even tutorials is an excellent way not to suffer, but to control the risk of perennity outlined above.
But what are the benefits of implementing such an approach to formalizing and transmitting know-how via video? Is this approach accessible to SMEs/ETIs, or is it reserved for the most mature groups advocating Industry 4.0? What benefits can be expected from such a paradigm shift between the heritage of oral transmission and the use of video tutorials and formats?
Discover here 5 direct benefits of using video to convey your in-house know-how.
Formalizing a skill by means of a video tutorial creates a framework to be respected by EVERYONE. This framework can then be amended, and successive iterations will enable the standard created for the implementation of this know-how to be upgraded over time.
It's often said that "there's no progress without measurement". Creating a video tutorial as "standard practice" gives the company a benchmark against which to measure its performance. It is therefore important that the standard actually corresponds to the best possible practice, and can serve as a benchmark or "base 100". A standard is usually the result of several successive iterations.
Video captures the completeness of a sequence of tasks, operations or gestures to achieve an expected result.
To "capture the gesture", the video tutorial format is easier to assimilate than a written format (.pdf for example) for several reasons:
Formalizing best practices for achieving good Quality results, or creating a defect library, for example, are already common reflexes in industry. Often, however, these formal written documents suffer from tedious updating, requiring them to be reprinted and distributed internally.
Otherwise, when best practices are not formalized or are only in writing, it is difficult to ensure that everyone knows when they have been updated, and they are rarely strictly adhered to by teams in the field.
How do most training courses take place?
They can take place face-to-face or remotely, but they usually require the synchronous availability of the "expert" and the "learner". Others can also make the learner more autonomous, thanks to written supports. But, for many companies in the industry, none of these methods seems satisfactory.
While the first option involves obvious costs for each training session on the same subject (translated into man-hours or productivity), the second can have the "effectiveness of a bottle in the sea".
Tutorials or training courses using video not only create a standard, but also enable teams to be trained efficiently and asynchronously. This means that experts need to be available less often, and for higher value-added interactions.
For example, to run an ERP process properly, you can record a video tutorial. Similarly, to carry out a task correctly and safely on a machine tool, it is possible to consult an operating procedure in video format. The investment required on the part of the expert to formalize the video, even if it requires several iterations, will always be less than the consolidated time of all the interruptions that could take place in an oral format. In this case, the expert saves precious time, while still being able to accompany learners at moments of high added value (questions/answers, specific points of attention, etc.).
Industry, like other sectors, suffers from all kinds of situations that lead to staff turnover. These can be resignations, for example, or, even more impactfully, retirements. In the manufacturing industry, where the culture of oral transmission is still strong, departures can jeopardize the survival of a department, or even the company's entire business.
By anticipating departures and formalizing know-how, expertise and operational reflexes through video tutorials, we can formalize feedback from employees.
This "REX" then serves a dual purpose: it simplifies the process of taking over the position or absorbing the load by the successor or the existing team, but above all it capitalizes on the experience acquired and "doesn't reinvent the wheel".
The greater "volatility of Talent" we've been witnessing for several years now makes the need for formalization and transmission even more prevalent. It's almost astonishing, but it's become just as important for companies to offer their teams an outstanding employee experience as it is to limit their dependence on individuals mastering business-critical know-how.
While competition on the job market is fierce, the manufacturing industry in particular suffers from a lack of attractiveness to young talent (Gen Z, etc.). There's no point in handing over your binders or powerpoint presentations to them, hoping they'll dive in and come back with a list of points to clear up... Youtube has risen to 2nd place in the search engine rankings, and answers to questions can now be found on video.
Whether it's a welcome/onboarding booklet, a safety briefing or initial training on a new position, the use of video has become essential to share the key information that employees need to know.
If video is an effective way of formalizing know-how in industry, it also appears to be the most suitable learning medium.
In conclusion, the use of video in general, and video tutorials in particular, has many benefits for the company: a focus on results and continuous improvement, lower training costs, efficient circulation of expertise or practice in line with employee expectations.
On the other hand, starting a formalization project can be anticipated and prepared internally. In most cases, there are no difficulties other than managing the change. Indeed, moving from an oral culture to a formalized one requires getting on board the teams who may be called upon to contribute, as well as those who will be asked to change their reflexes. More often than not, we find that a formalization process aimed at better capitalizing on and disseminating in-house know-how needs to be approached in several stages:
At Komin, we're convinced that all the answers to the questions employees are asking exist internally: we just need to make it easier to formalize and share them. If you'd like to discuss this, without any obligation on your part, don't hesitate to give me a call!
"With Komin, we have documented our operating procedures 10x faster than with paper"
- J. Cerruti (Methods & Industrialization Manager)
