Work instruction: what it is and what it means

The work instruction is the most granular level of a company's operational documentation: it describes a single elementary activity, carried out by one role only, with a single sequence of actions. It does not cover an end-to-end process or involve multiple actors. It is an elementary building block that an SOP can refer to, but not the other way around. The boundary with the SOP is granularity and the number of roles involved: where the SOP describes a multi-role process, the work instruction describes a single-role task.

Distinctive: single elementary activity
Distinctive: one role only
Essential: most granular level
Essential: single sequence of actions
Constant: does not cover an end-to-end process
Constant: a single-role task

Glossary

Work instruction

The most granular level of operational documentation: a single elementary activity carried out by one role with a single sequence of actions.