Here's how Orkla Foods Norway uses SwipeGuide to streamline content creation and reduce downtime on the shop floor.
Millions of people depend on Orkla to supply a diverse range of high quality food and beverage products. Their portfolio includes everything from jams and chocolate, to pizza and ready-to-eat meals. Orkla is proud to deliver delicious products while maintaining a focus on quality, innovation, and sustainable growth in their day-to-day manufacturing processes.
Orkla is committed to finding new tools and solutions to increase productivity and sustainable ways of working throughout their manufacturing operations. The initial pilot project with Orkla Foods Norway was started by jointly identifying a use case at a single site with the goal of creating a positive impact on their manufacturing operations. After successfully completing this pilot project, we’re proud to announce that the SwipeGuide platform has made a positive and scalable impact on:
Our collaboration has allowed Orkla Foods Norway to optimize the delivery of digital work instructions at crucial moments during the manufacturing process. We’ve also helped reduce the workload placed on supervisors to create, edit, and distribute work instructions and Standard Operating Procedures [SOPs].
Intuitive digital tools like SwipeGuide are one of the most effective ways to address the manufacturing skills gap. Orkla Foods Norway is enjoying the added benefits of streamlining their training process while capturing and correcting silent knowledge.
Put these benefits together, and it’s clear that SwipeGuide is helping to continuously improve processes while maintaining strict standards of efficiency and product quality.
Tablet editing is a key feature for Orkla Foods Norway.
In our pilot project, the SwipeGuide platform has demonstrated the benefits of replacing a paper-based work instruction system. Like many modern manufacturers, Orkla Foods Norway factories have relied heavily on paper Standard Operating Procedures [SOPs] and work instructions to support operators in their daily work. Before, if an individual operator needed information on how to safely and correctly accomplish a task within a particular workflow or process, she would need to physically locate this information where it was stored.
Has my supervisor made changes to this process?
Is this information correct, up-to-date, and will it help me finish the job the right way?
Sound familiar?
Orkla Foods Norway has used our digital work instruction platform to streamline the authoring, editing, and distribution process of instructions and SOPs on the shop floor.
Supervisors and administrators were responsible for authoring work instructions as well as updating, correcting, and distributing them. These systems have been the industry standard for decades. But Orkla Foods Norway - in their quest for a better, more sustainable way of working - recognized this particular area as an opportunity to embrace new digital tools and increase efficiency.
The minimalist design of the SwipeGuide platform simplifies the content creation process for supervisors. Content creators utilize the minimalist and user-focused platform to create standardized content with a drag-and-drop interface.
Not only can they create work instructions more easily, but they can make them while out in the factory. With SwipeGuide, authors are able to walk the production line with a tablet, take a photo of a particular machine or component, and create a relevant instruction in minutes.
Easier editing helps Orkla Foods Norway empower a process of continuous improvement and helps reduce the pressure on a supervisor to create and distribute updated material. Paper-based systems are notoriously difficult and time consuming to edit. This difficulty often leads to bottlenecks for supervisors that consume valuable time and resources.
Editing instructions and SOPs within a digital instruction platform means that corrections are published instantaneously. Improvements made to an instruction are instantly available to any of the users in a factory (or anywhere within a value chain that an instruction is shared - but more on that later).
With SwipeGuide, knowledge can be standardized faster and more effectively because changes and fixes can be implemented and shared across teams with the push of a button.
Instructions made with SwipeGuide give operators the confidence that they will always find the most up-to-date content. In the past, when a machine operator went to look for a paper work instruction wherever it was stored (in a binder, filing cabinet, or otherwise), she had to wonder if this was the most correct version of the instruction.
SwipeGuide removes these doubts. The operator simply activates the instruction via a QR code on the machine, and instantly sees the most up-to-date information in an intuitive format on any mobile device. No more wondering, and no more time spent searching through a binder.
Instruction scoring & feedback >
The top companies are searching for new tools and strategies to deal with the growing manufacturing skills gap. Just like other food and beverage companies, Orkla Foods Norway sees employees retiring (or job hopping) and a new generation of millennial employees taking their place. Our collaboration provided the opportunity to refine the way that they approached the training of this new workforce while simultaneously optimizing existing knowledge.
More efficient training.
Orkla Foods Norway saw the chance to gain an edge in Industry 4.0 and improve upon a training method that has been an industry standard since lean strategies were pioneered in the 1960s. Like most manufacturing companies, they would pair new recruits with an experienced member of the workforce who would facilitate this “buddy system” for a number of weeks. When the recruit had questions or needed support on a particular machine, procedure, or task, this “training buddy” would step in to provide guidance and advice.
Digital work instructions and SOPs save time and resources by reducing the need for this in-person support. Rather, they provide the same resources in a mobile and digital format. New employees can go about their work on the shop floor and in the moment they need guidance or clarification on a particular process, they can scan a QR code and be given the most up-to-date work instruction for the task at hand.
This method:
"New recruits go step by step to do the task at hand and they're all eager to use it again. We see that they are happy, they like the instructions, and they really see the need to use SwipeGuide."
Every manufacturer deals with silent knowledge on the shop floor. This is information and best practices that are kept in the heads of knowledgeable employees, instead of being recorded and evaluated in a standardized process. As we mentioned before, sometimes these methods can be very effective. Other times, like when a knowledgeable individual retires or changes jobs, not so much.
Manufacturers need an effective solution for capturing this information so it can be evaluated, recorded, and standardized into deliverable processes and procedures.
Orkla Foods Norway has used our solution to capture and also improve silent knowledge within their own organization.
SwipeGuide makes it easier to capture knowledge on the shop floor, because supervisors can easily create work instructions while out on the production line. This greatly simplifies the process of recording critical details and images when observing a process.
Expert employees can leave detailed feedback about a task using our instruction scoring and feedback feature. These comments and suggestions can then be evaluated and implemented into the existing standard procedures.
Our platform also provides an effective overview of all existing instructions. Now supervisors can view every instruction in a single location, review them for accuracy, and then redistribute the updated version to every worker on the factory floor.
We set out to help Orkla Foods Norway create a more cost effective, sustainable way of working by delivering a flexible digital work instruction platform.
Increased productivity.
Potentially the biggest impact - SwipeGuide simply makes daily life on the shop floor easier for both machine operators and their supervisors. They enjoy a simple, streamlined way of working that’s supported by an intuitive digital tool.
More sustainable work instructions and processes.
In line with Orkla Foods Norway’s CSR and sustainability goals - digital work instructions simply reduce the amount of paper used throughout a company’s entire supply chain. No more printing out lengthy PDF manuals or dealing with physical training materials.
In addition to this, the productivity and efficiency benefits of the SwipeGuide platform mean fewer errors during production. This translates to less wasted resources and defects in the end product.
Reduced downtime and errors.
A digital platform makes it easy for manufacturers to standardize all processes and procedures within a production environment. For Orkla Foods Norway, this has reduced expensive machine downtime and human errors during the production process.
Improved First Time Right.
When employees have instant access to the most up-to-date work instructions, they are more likely to execute work correctly the first time they attempt a new or complex procedure. Implementing the SwipeGuide platform has resulted in a better FTR score for Orkla Foods Norway.
Improved employee satisfaction.
Our partners at Orkla Foods Norway are happy to say that they’ve noticed an overall improvement in the attitudes of their workforce on the factory floor. Machine operators are relieved to have a solution that requires less time to access and is guaranteed to be accurate and up-to-date.
SwipeGuide has recently finished a successful proof of value at a single factory within Orkla Foods Norway. This Proof of Value was initiated with a kickoff event in collaboration with key OFN stakeholders and SwipeGuide’s own customer success team, where we familiarized ourselves with the production facilities and continued to learn about their specific needs and use cases with the platform.
Throughout the pilot program, Orkla Foods Norway enjoyed continuous support and rapid response from the SwipeGuide team. One of the distinct advantages of partnering with an agile startup is that any potential bugs and issues are typically addressed within 24 hours. This Proof of Value was supported by weekly meetings with SwipeGude customer success staff, where the teams could evaluate content creation and collaborate to implement the most effective ways of working with SwipeGuide.
This is something that we consider essential to the process - a work instruction platform is only as good as the instructions created. At SwipeGuide, we work closely with our customers to help them to not only become proficient with the tool, but also understand the research-based principles behind how to design truly effective work instructions within our minimalist platform. This allows customers like Orkla Foods Norway to continuously and sustainably create efficient instructions according to standards for the long-term.
"Using a system that is easy to use both for the operators and for the editors is really helping us save valuable production time."
We have mutually evaluated the pilot program as a success, and Orkla Foods Norway was more than satisfied with theSwipeGuide platform. They cited the ROIs included above, but also a better way of working with happy employees who recognize the clear benefits over paper-based solutions. The time and energy saved with our platform simply made a positive impact on the quality and experience of their work.
As our partnership moves forward, we’re excited to expand the SwipeGuide solution to more factories within Orkla’s global value chain. Multiple locations utilizing our platforms - combined with innovative features like Cross-Platform and Multi-Space - will allow them to share and standardize best practices throughout their global network. This process helps companies like Orkla innovate rapidly and celebrate success more effectively.
Orkla Foods Norway was eager to explore a partnership with SwipeGuide because they see the value of innovative digital solutions in Industry 4.0. Our collaboration has helped one location improve efficiency and downtime on the factory floor, and has provided new opportunities for continuous improvement through the democratization of operational knowledge.
This means that their factories perform better and produce better products with fewer errors and less waste. Moving forward, our partnership will allow them to continue to meet their ambitious social and environmental sustainability goals while still providing the high quality products that have earned them their reputation in the global food manufacturing industry.
This customer story is just one of many. Our successful use case with Orkla Foods Norway has demonstrated the impact that our solution can have on their global operations, but also the impact that digital work instructions can have in any manufacturing operation.