Question and answer log
- 0 instructions given, each from an approved version.
- Refused for lack of an approved source: 1.
SOP Intelligence
Ask questions of the approved procedures
People ask colleagues instead of reading, because finding the answer in a procedure is slow, and the colleague may be wrong.
Demonstration: Fernhill Packaging Ltd (fictional) · Manufacturing. Fictional data and a scripted answer.
The situation
- Organisation
- Fernhill Packaging Ltd (fictional)
- Who is asking
- Machine operator on the night shift
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- What happened
- An operator asks what to do when the glue temperature alarm sounds, and there is no supervisor on site.
The question asked
What should I do when the glue temperature alarm sounds on line 2?
What it reads, and who can see the result
- Approved procedures registerOnly versions marked approved.
- Reads
- Only the approved current versions of procedures for the operator's line.
- Does not read
- Drafts, superseded versions, or other lines' procedures.
- Permission
- Operator access to approved procedures for line 2.
- Who sees it
- The operator and, afterwards, the supervisor reading the log of questions.
Try it
Choose which statements go into the brief. A statement with no source is refused; each one you include carries its sources with it.
Answer to the operator
Choose the statements to include. Each one carries its sources into the brief.
0 of 6 statements included · 1 held back for lack of a source.
The answer
Simulated answer. Written for this fictional case, not produced by a live model. Only the figures in it are computed, from what you decided above.
0 instructions from approved procedures; 1 was refused because no approved procedure says it.
The answer is built only from approved procedures [S1][S2]. The restart-within-five-minutes advice is not in any approved document, so it is not given: restarting a hot glue unit on a guess is the kind of step that causes accidents.
A draft maintenance note exists but it is not approved, so it is not used as an instruction [S3]. If nothing in the approved set answers a question, the right answer is to say so and send the operator to a person.
Relies on: S1 · Line 2 glue unit procedure, version 3.1 (approved)S2 · Line 2 alarm response card, version 2.0 (approved)S3 · Maintenance note, glue unit (draft)
Review and approval
The shift supervisor, afterwards decides. Approving logs the question and answer for the supervisor to review next shift. It does not change any procedure.
Not ready to approve. Choose at least one supported statement for the brief first.
In the product this is a different person with the right permission. Here you play that role to see the rule.
What it produces
Limits of this example
- Answers come only from approved procedures; a question outside them gets an honest 'not covered', not an invention.
- In an emergency, follow the site's emergency procedure and call for help.
- This is a scripted demonstration on fictional data. No model was called and no real organisation, person or result is shown.
More in SOP Intelligence
- Capture how work is really doneThe most valuable knowledge in an organisation sits in the heads of a few people, in old recordings, in scattered documents.
- Create a procedure from the sourceWriting a clear, complete procedure from scratch is slow, and the written version often differs from what people actually do.
- Review and approve, as peopleA procedure that nobody accountable has approved is a liability, however well it reads.
- Publish a versioned, official releasePeople work from whichever copy they happen to find, and nobody can say which version was in force on a given day.
- Put the procedure where the work happensA procedure in a folder nobody opens does not change how work is done.
- Work in the language people think inA procedure that is only in one language is not read by everyone who needs it, and a careless translation can change its meaning.
The SOP Intelligence story · This capability in the full register