Adapting technical documentation and data to meet the need of paperless business operations

In the final thesis, I defined the basic concepts and the theoretical foundations of several aspects of paperless business and implemented them in practical use in production processes.

I chose the “machine department” of Arcont d.d. as the basis for the transition to paperless business, as this was the topic, I spent the most time on during my compulsory internship.

In my thesis I focused on the basic hypotheses, which I elaborated, evaluated and tried to analytically confirm or reject.

I paid particular attention to how to make the work of the worker easier through paperless business, how paperless business makes it easier for us to change technical documentation after the fact, how to improve the traceability and accessibility of technical documentation in the case of full digitisation, and how to make the production processes themselves safer through the implementation of paperless business.

How to adapt technical documentation to the needs of paperless (digital) business? How to improve the technical documentation to make it easier for the employee to understand the plans?  How to ensure traceability of semi-finished products by means of computer-aided programmes during assembly in production?

This is how we can most easily decide whether digitisation makes sense through the basic questions that we implement in the company concerned.

In the company I am dealing with in my thesis, the paperless process was implemented gradually. First, all the plans were updated audit-style and broken down into 4 sets, which later represent the most useful combination of simplicity, traceability and usability (in terms of ways of storing files that can later be used in other NC programs/devices).

In the final part, we touch on the general terms of digitisation, evaluate the rationale of going paperless, show a practical way of changing plans and saving them, while capturing suggestions for improvements to make the working environment even safer by going paperless.

If the decision is taken to go digital, it is important to be aware that all staff must also adapt to the new way of working and that any change is consistently audited in the update of the plans.