Creating an operations manual

The writer must be able to present the processes in a manner that allows someone unfamiliar with your business to perform the task. If you do not already employ such a person, consider outsourcing the project. If you outsource, there is no need to hire a professional: a communications student or entry-level technical writer can do the job. You'll simply need to assign a project manager from within your office. Regardless of who writes the manual, understand that it is not a one-person project.

You are creating a company-wide document and will need input from all departments. The project manager should create a list of general how-to questions. Then, whichever employee is currently responsible for a given task should record how to do it. Then the project manager or writer can formalize it.

Testing Once your operations manual is complete, try it out. Have an employee or the project manager follow the steps for a particular activity in another department. Testing will help you ascertain the accuracy and ease of use of the manual before you need it. Its value has little to do with the size of the company. It took eight months to complete the manual, including drafting and testing the written procedures.

It wasn't a priority for some staff. They saw it as extra work. She realized that, because the project had not been adequately explained to the other managers, they had not relayed its importance to their department staffs. To address this, Hathaway's boss distributed a memo to all staff, carefully highlighting the benefits of an operations manual to both the employees and to the organization as a whole. I would definitely recommend that any company taking on an operations manual project make it known to the staff how important the document is, and ask for their full cooperation.

Discuss with your staff the importance of an operations manual. Staff may feel threatened if asked to document everything they do. Explain the benefits of an operations manual: It's easier to take holidays if others can perform your duties. One employee's work will not be hindered by the absence of another.

New staff will become productive more quickly. Staff can learn how to do the work required of other positions if interested.

Begin by writing job descriptions. Ideally, have the employees write the descriptions and then review them with their respective managers. For each department, list a series of tasks to be documented and assign them to individuals based on the job descriptions. Tell staff to add to the list if a procedure has been overlooked. Have the project manager perform the task according to the written procedures.

It must include provisions for good communication between the person tasked with coordinating the emergency response and everyone at the workplace. The financial operational manual template shows how any stakeholder and even new members of the committee or staff in your company can determine what activities must be completed, who will complete them, and who will ensure that they are completed correctly. It can also be used to track the financial duties and other transactions that your company operates.

The coffee shop operations manual is a document that you can use to follow through on the activity that occurs in your coffee shop. It is a written set of your operating procedures that is clear and succinct and is useful for training new personnel and maintaining consistency. It also creates a blueprint that you can use to replicate your success and grow your brand in new areas. This template is required to improve productivity and profits in a coffee shop. A school operations manual template can be adapted in your school to make activities easy for both staff and students.

It is a collection of most of the legislation governing common school system operations, as well as other laws influencing school operations. Administrative rules that have been adopted to improve the laws are also included to guide and govern schools.

The warehouse operations manual template simplifies how humans operate manual warehouses and storage systems, which includes storage locations and racking systems that are not accessed by automated systems. It helps you to pass the information surrounding the warehouse to your employees.

It includes statements of purpose for the warehouse, staff needs, storage facilities, and other documentation. An employee operations manual template helps you to pass important information to employees regarding the standards that are required of each person.

This details how to execute a job activity or handle a specific circumstance in the workplace. It can also be used to improve the productivity of your employees. A church operations manual template helps in the administration of the church and includes sections on how the church is controlled, how money is handled, and harassment and abuse policies.

It also specifies departmental information, policies and procedures, contact information, and their operations. A construction operations manual template is used to carry out construction activities. It explains the scope of the project and the type of construction to be used and as-built drawings in a format that has been agreed upon.

It also contains plans for services, register of assets, operation and maintenance instructions. The flight operations manual FOM template is used to keep in check all activities that are related to flights and air attendants. They are essential for keeping your flight department organized. The policies and procedures of the organization, as well as standard operating procedures and training needs, are all included in a decent flight operations manual.

A FOM improves safety and efficiency while lowering operational expenses. The help desk operations manual template helps you direct all help desk officers in your company and serves as a single point of contact for users to contact IT with requests. The home-based business operations manual template helps you to organize, coordinate and direct your home-based business.

Recently, homework has taken on a new meaning. The desire to achieve economic independence has prompted a great number of people to sell their abilities and talents from the comfort of their own homes.

The IT operations manual template helps you to handle all businesses surrounding the information security policies and procedures document which includes an acceptable use policy, a computer usage policy for employees, a BYOD bring your own device policy, IT security planning, IT risk assessment, and IT security auditing methods, among other things. A franchise operations manual template helps you as a franchisor to use the franchise operations handbook as a how-to guide for communicating system standards and criteria to franchisees.

It also helps you to manage your employees and guide them to be productive and exhibit professionalism. A hotel operations manual template helps you as an owner of a hotel to adopt an SOP that your employees follow.

This aids in the consistency and quality of service delivery and sets standards for your hotel. It also helps in the organization of role assignments for the effective performance of each employee. The non-profit operations manual template explains and guides you on how to perform your duties as a non-profit organization.

From project planning to impactful idea generation and funding, this template has you covered. It contains the standard operating procedures that you can use to describe your organizational hierarchy, prepare important staff contact information, and create emergency protocols.

The office operations manual template helps you to coordinate the affairs of your company and employees so that they can perform at their highest professional capacities.

With it, you will create and manage office procedures to attain efficiency with every stakeholder in your office, i. The company operations manual template helps you to form the processes and procedures that your employees should follow to work at their best. With this template, you can create a framework that stands as a work communication platform between you and your workers so that tasks are delivered accurately, efficiently, and without waste of resources.

The small business operations manual template serves the sole purpose of reminding your employees of when and how to perform their duties.

This is important because, in a small business, you wear many hats. Having this in place will put many tasks on autopilot, which helps you to spend more time on other urgent activities. When people adopt a particular operations manual template, some questions pop up in their process of aligning it to the needs, functionalities, and specifics of their business.

Below are answers to some frequently asked questions about the operations manual templates. But if these are important to you, then you must create an operations manual. Also if you want to create employee training material for your employees, the operations manual will help new employees become more acquainted with how your business functions before they get into the main details of the professional training.

Preparing these documents from scratch requires a lot of effort and resources. Before creating an operations manual template, you must have a deep understanding of how your entire business process works.

Once you do, make sure you define the business policies that guide your organization and specify the job roles and organizational hierarchy. Afterward, you can begin writing the details of your operations manual template.

Here is a video that outlines everything you must know in order to create an operations manual outline for your business. This has happened to other organizations but they were able to find success using SweetProcess.

Take, for instance, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services DFPS , a government agency that focuses on adult protective services, child protective services, childcare investigations, prevention, and early intervention. They use SweetProcess to take full control of their operations. The problem DFPS had was that they process over 40, records a year which is a lot of work.

To overcome this, the department created work manuals using tools such as Microsoft Word, SharePoint, and Excel. But all of these were inadequate in meeting the demands of the job. With bits of information stored in different places, there was a lot of back and forth that made their work complex. One was over pages. You can check if some things can be bolded or highlighted in any other way. Make sure everyone knows where it can be found, what it covers, and how to use it.

Over time, you are bound to come across new information and details that should be included in the document. Likewise, you will purchase new assets, change existing workflows, and expand existing operations. The manual has to be updated to stay relevant. As your operations grow, so should your operations and maintenance manual. For this reason, it is better to create an electronic version and store it in a CMMS and other digital systems. This way, it can be easily updated and accessed from any device.

You do not have to start everything from scratch. You can rely on existing templates to outline your version of the document. While the structure of these documents is similar, the contents vary depending on the purpose of the document.

That reiterates how important it is to have a plan in mind before creating the operation and maintenance manual. Operation and maintenance manuals are the perfect places to outline general procedures and guidelines. To avoid cluttering the document with overly specific information, most maintenance departments will want to keep machine maintenance manuals separate. However, that makes sense only if you are using a computerized maintenance management system like Limble.

Because Limble is a cloud-based software with barcode integration and a centralized asset card and barcode integration. Cloud-based means that the manuals can be accessed via any mobile device with an internet connection. Barcode integration means that a technician can just scan the barcode on an asset and the app will automatically open the centralized asset card seen in the image below which contains all maintenance information about that particular asset general info, maintenance history, maintenance manual….

Having quick and easy access to maintenance manuals is one of many benefits of having mobile maintenance software as it leads to significant workflow improvements.

It cuts down on inefficiencies, boosts productivity, and reduces idle time. There is no point in creating an operation and maintenance manual if nobody is going to use it. Structure the document in a logical manner, use visual aids to explain and summarize complex processes, make the document easily accessible, and push people to use the document instead of interrupting their colleagues in their daily activities.

For more awesome content, browse through our blog! The functionality was extremely easy, but still provides the analytics needed to track our companies time and money spent on maintenance. Their support is top-notch! I've dealt with numerous software companies in my position and can tell you, you will not find one better! A must for any maintenance department. The customization options available when setting up PM's are great. I love the flexibility it gives to tailor the PM to exactly what your needs are.

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