In recent years, multiple nuclear utilities have deployed electronic work management solutions to replace the traditional paper-based processes. There are several benefits of electronic work management solutions compared to paper processes, such as a more streamlined review and approval process. However, the utilities also hoped the new solution would support workers in conducting their jobs more efficiently, correctly, and safely. Unfortunately, the industry is now realizing that the existing solutions are failing to achieve the expected improvements in overall work execution.

The electronic work management solutions present the work instructions as an electronic copy (i.e., a portable document format [PDF]) of the paper instruction. The PDF versions used in these electronic work management solutions have some ability for data input, notes, and mark-up, but they do not provide many additional benefits compared to using paper. Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) investigated going beyond smart PDFs from a human factors perspective. In close collaboration with multiple utilities, they investigated how to present instruction content and how to design interaction with the instructions to improve the workers’ performance and efficiency. Their solution is a dynamic presentation of the instructions that guides the worker through the correct path. A well-designed solution has the opportunity to vastly reduce the risk of human errors in the field. This paper will describe, in detail, how the design concepts improve human performance.