Guide: retire paper forms for a mobile app in five steps

Many small businesses still run on paper forms: repair tickets, inspection sheets, production logbooks. Moving them to a mobile app does not have to start with a large, expensive system. This guide is the approach the author used in a real factory, scaled down so a small business can follow it.

Five steps

1. Start with the most painful form. The one that is typed in twice, often wrong, or that most people wait on. Do not start every form at once.

2. Watch people fill it in. Notice when it is filled, whether hands are dirty, whether people stand or sit, which fields nobody fills, and which ones overflow the box. That is your app's specification.

3. Build only the fields that are really used. Drop the empty fields, let people choose instead of type, scan instead of copy, and check values as they are entered.

4. Run it beside paper for two weeks. Let both run together, compare every day, and improve the app from what users say.

5. Retire paper when you are confident. Announce a clear date, and keep the old paper for a while in case you need to look back.

Before and after

Checklist before you start

• You know who owns this data and who decides from it
• The app works on weak signal and sends data when back online
• Data is backed up automatically
• The people filling it in tried it before day one, and someone answers questions in week one
• You can measure the result, such as how long data takes to reach decision makers and errors per week

A closing thought

Success does not come from the technology; it comes from making the app easier than paper. When people on the floor feel their own work getting easier, the next form changes faster. For the thinking behind this, see the article on the six dimensions of digital organisation design.

Sources

Summarised from the author's experience moving factory record-keeping from paper to a mobile app. Company details are confidential, so it is presented at the level of principles.