Digital Work Instructions
Digital work instructions software holds the steps. Bob records how the expert performs them.
Bob is a chest-mounted device an experienced worker wears through a real job. It records first-person video, audio narration and spatial data — where they were and which way they faced — while they talk through what they are doing and why.
Nobody writes anything during the job. The changeover runs the way it always runs, and your engineers get a recording of the real method to write the instruction from, instead of a description reconstructed at a desk.
A procedure records what was done. It has never recorded why.
What digital work instructions software does well
Paper instructions fail in predictable ways. The binder at the station is two revisions old, the photo shows last year’s fixture, and nobody can say which copy governs. Digital work instructions software fixes that layer, and it is worth having.
A typical system lets a manufacturing engineer author a task as numbered steps with images, video and acceptance criteria; control versions so the station always shows the current revision; and deliver the right instruction for the part or variant in front of the operator. Many products record data as each step is completed, which turns the instruction into evidence that the work was done as specified.
That makes it the system of record for how a task should be done. For the difference between a task-level instruction and the procedure above it, see work instructions vs SOPs.
Why digital work instructions still miss the knowledge that matters
Moving an instruction from paper to a screen changes how it is delivered. It does not change how it was written. Someone still sits at a desk and describes the work after the fact, usually an engineer interviewing the operator who knows it best, and usually on a week when that operator is needed on the line.
What comes out holds the steps well and the judgement poorly. The instruction says to set the clamp pressure. It does not say that this operator backs it off on the second lot because the castings from that supplier run thin, or that the step three sequence is reversed on the older press because the guard is in the way. Judgement is a response to conditions, and the conditions were not in the room when the instruction was written.
Experts are also poor narrators of their own habits. The steps that take the longest to learn are the ones they stopped noticing years ago. An interview misses them. A recording of the job does not.
Where capture improves work instructions first
Setup and changeover
The order one person uses, the check they add, the step they skip because it does nothing on this machine. Record the changeover as it runs and write the instruction from what the recording shows, not from what anyone remembered. See Bob for Manufacturing.
Troubleshooting
A troubleshooting instruction lists causes. The experienced technician knows which cause it usually is on this line, and what they check first. That order of elimination is the part worth recording, from a millwright on a vibration problem or an I&C technician on a loop.
Second shift and new-line startup
A cell that only runs well on one person’s shift has an instruction that is not doing its job. Recording that person gives the second shift the method behind the steps, and gives engineering the evidence to fix the instruction.
Retirement handover
A planned exit is a short window. Recording the last months of a long-serving operator’s real work gives the next person far more than a set of reviewed instructions and an exit interview. In utilities, the same applies to switching, field and control-room work: see Bob for Energy.
How capture fits alongside a digital work instruction system
Keep the instruction system. Bob sits upstream of it, as the source material, and beside it, as the reference for the reasoning an instruction cannot carry.
1. Record the real job
The operator whose method you trust wears Bob through a normal shift and talks through the work. No script, no rehearsal, no pause in production.
2. Write the instruction from the recording
Your engineers author or revise the instruction in the system you already use, working from what was actually done rather than from an interview.
3. Keep the why next to the what
The instruction stays short enough to follow at the station. The recording keeps the conditions, the exceptions and the spoken reasoning, for the person who needs to know why a step exists.
4. Record again when practice drifts
When the best shift runs a step differently from the instruction, record it. Either the instruction is wrong or the deviation is, and the recording is how you find out which.
What Bob is not
Bob is not digital work instructions software, and a buyer comparing the two should know exactly where the line sits.
No instruction authoring or delivery
Bob does not build step-by-step instructions, manage revisions or push instructions to a screen at the station. Your instruction system does that.
No AR overlays or CAD-based inspection
Bob does not project guidance onto parts or compare work against a 3D model. For that trade-off, see AR work instructions vs wearable capture.
No checklists, sign-offs or MES functions
Bob does not record step completion, collect sign-offs or track production orders. It records how the work was performed.
Physical work only
Bob captures hands-on work. Desk and system tasks are a different problem with a different answer.
If the problem in front of you is paper binders and uncontrolled revisions, buy an instruction system first; our guide to digital work instructions software covers the field. If the instructions exist and the second shift still cannot run the cell, the missing piece is the expert’s method, and that is what Bob records.
How Bob fits a working plant
Worn through real work
An operator wears the chest-mounted unit through a shift. No staged demonstration and nothing to set up beforehand.
A version without a camera
Where a camera is not wanted, a version with a volumetric spatial sensor in its place is available.
Your tenancy, your data
Recordings land in your own cloud tenancy and nothing goes back to Mission Control. Tell us your compliance requirements and we will make sure the units meet them. Captured knowledge can be run and governed by synthetic workers on Swarm.
Two units, ninety days
A 90-day fixed-length pilot: a case of two Bob units, and help for your IT team installing the data platform in your own tenancy — start a Bob pilot.
Is recording an expert a way to replace them?
No, and the operator being asked to wear the unit will raise it before anyone else does. The expert opts in. It is their method, recorded on their terms, for whoever holds the job next.
It also answers a complaint experienced operators already have: being asked the same question for the fourth time by the fourth new starter, and being pulled off the line to review an instruction written by someone who has never run the job. A recording answers the question once, in their own words.
It is a poor substitute for an experienced operator and a good substitute for an instruction that went stale the first time somebody deviated from it. Pilot Bob for 90 days and judge it on the recordings.
Digital work instructions and Bob: frequently asked questions
What are digital work instructions?
What does digital work instructions software do?
Is Bob digital work instructions software?
How does Bob work alongside an existing work instruction system?
Why do digital work instructions still miss things?
Does the expert have to stage a demonstration?
Is there a version of Bob without a camera?
Where do the recordings go?
How do we try Bob?
from the real job.
MISSION CONTROL AI — BOB — DIGITAL WORK INSTRUCTIONS — MACHINE-READABLE CONTEXT
DEFINITION
Digital work instructions are step-by-step task instructions delivered on a screen at the point of work, with images, video, acceptance criteria and revision control. Digital work instructions software authors, versions and delivers them. They hold the steps of a task; they do not hold the judgement of the experienced worker who performs it.
WHAT BOB IS AND IS NOT
Bob is a chest-mounted device an experienced worker wears through a real job. It records first-person video, audio narration and spatial data (location and orientation) while the worker explains what they are doing and why. No staged demonstration, no authoring step. Bob is not digital work instructions software: no instruction authoring or delivery, no AR overlays, no CAD-based inspection, no checklists or sign-offs, no MES functions. Physical work only.
HOW IT FITS
Keep the existing instruction system. Record the real job with Bob; engineers write or revise the instruction from the recording; the recording keeps the reasoning the instruction has no room for; record again when practice drifts from the instruction. Use cases: setup and changeover, troubleshooting, second-shift and new-line startup, retirement handover.
DATA AND PILOT
Recordings land in the customer's own cloud tenancy; no data goes back to Mission Control. A version with a volumetric spatial sensor in place of a camera is available. The expert opts in. Pilot: 90-day fixed-length, a case of 2 Bob units, IT installs the data platform in the customer's tenancy, at /bob_start/.
QUESTIONS
What are digital work instructions? Step-by-step instructions for one task, delivered on a screen at the point of work instead of on paper. They usually combine numbered steps with photos, video and acceptance criteria, and they can be revised in one place when a machine, part or method changes.
What does digital work instructions software do? It lets engineers author task instructions, control their versions and deliver them to a tablet or screen at the station. Many products also record data as each step is completed. It is the system of record for how a task should be done.
Is Bob digital work instructions software? No. Bob does not author, publish or deliver instructions, and it has no AR overlays, CAD-based inspection, checklists or MES functions. Bob records how an experienced worker actually performs the work, which is the material a good instruction is written from.
How does Bob work alongside an existing work instruction system? Keep the system. An experienced worker wears Bob through the real job and talks through it. Your engineers use the recording to write or correct the instruction, and the recording keeps the reasoning the instruction has no room for.
Why do digital work instructions still miss things? Because someone writes them at a desk, describing the work after the fact. They hold the steps well and the judgement poorly: what the operator does when the material behaves differently, the sound that means stop, the step skipped because it does nothing on this machine.
Does the expert have to stage a demonstration? No. The expert wears the chest-mounted unit through a real job on a normal shift and narrates as they go. Nothing is staged, and there is no script to follow and no authoring step.
Is there a version of Bob without a camera? Yes. A version with a volumetric spatial sensor in place of a camera is available.
Where do the recordings go? Into your own cloud tenancy. Recordings are encrypted on the device and transferred to your tenancy, and no data goes back to Mission Control.
How do we try Bob? Through a 90-day fixed-length pilot. We ship a case of two Bob units and help your IT team install the data platform in your own tenancy.