Why would workers rather keep notes in a little notebook than use MES?

An MES cost hundreds of thousands or even millions, and it has gone live.
And the result?
When workers are doing their jobs, they still write things down in a notebook first. When they have time, they enter the data into the system later.
Tell me – has this MES really gone live, or not?

What is most worth pondering here is not why workers are uncooperative, but rather:

Why does a piece of software that claims to help factories improve efficiency end up adding work to the shop floor?

Imagine a very common scenario.
In the workshop, workers are rushing a batch of urgent orders. The equipment cannot stop, and the next process is waiting for materials.
At this moment, the system requires them to first scan the work order, select the process, enter the quantity, and then register the equipment status.
If there is rework, a temporary material change, or the system simply doesn't have the corresponding option, they also have to find the team leader to handle it.

What do the workers do?
Finish the work first, write it down in the notebook, and enter it later when they are free.
To the workers, this is perfectly reasonable. The production task is in front of them; data entry can be postponed.

But for management, the problem arises.
The data is not real-time, progress cannot be accurately assessed, and anomalies are discovered late. At the end of the month, when statistics are compiled, the data in the system does not match the shop floor.

Management thinks the workers are not executing properly, and the workers think the system is nothing but trouble.
What about the software vendor? They may think the training was insufficient and the processes were not properly executed, and that the system needs further optimisation.
You see, all three parties have a point, yet the problem remains unsolved.

01A More Worthwhile Question: Who Actually Benefits from Workers Entering Data?

Management wants to know production progress, finance wants to calculate work hours, the quality department needs to trace batches, and the boss wants to see efficiency.
These needs are all reasonable.
But if the task of data entry is assigned to workers, and after entering it, it does not help them take one less step, fill out one less form, or even allow them to collect materials faster, handle exceptions faster, or complete reporting faster – then why should they actively cooperate?

Of course, not all problems can be blamed on the software.
Some factories do have issues with inadequate execution. Some shop floors have long relied on verbal arrangements, and the management rules themselves are unclear. Some workers also worry that once data becomes transparent, output, work hours, and responsibilities will all be calculated more clearly.
These situations cannot be solved simply by changing an interface.

But conversely, if the system design did not seriously consider how the shop floor actually works, and then requires workers to change their habits and take on extra work, and then attributes the low usage rate to insufficient employee awareness – that is also unfair.

02An Easily Overlooked Issue: Divergence of Interests

Industrial software has an easily overlooked issue:

The data management wants is not necessarily the data that frontline workers are willing to actively provide.There is a real divergence of interests in between.

So when evaluating an MES, you cannot just look at how many features it has, how beautiful the reports are, or whether the system has passed acceptance.
You also have to ask:

Has it made the work on the shop floor easier?

If data that equipment can automatically collect still requires workers to fill in manually; if production has already happened but the system only knows about it after work ends; if when special situations occur on the shop floor, the system only demands operations according to a fixed process – then no matter how complete the functions are, it will be difficult for the system to truly integrate into production.

03The Hardest Part of MES

But this is not to say that the solution is to blindly accommodate the shop floor or simply abandon standardisation.
Without standards, management is difficult to coordinate; without considering the shop floor, standards may fail to land.
This is the hardest part of MES.

A question for friends who have truly worked on factory digitalisation:

If, after an MES goes live, workers still habitually write in notebooks, who do you think should bear the primary responsibility? The software vendor, the factory management, or the frontline workers?More importantly, have you ever seen a real solution to this problem?