Poka, EZ GO, ManualMaster, and ELICIT: What is the difference?

Knowledge management tools all promise the same thing: capturing knowledge, supporting operators, and accelerating training. But how do they actually differ? And which problems do they solve for you? We discuss three well-known solutions (POKA, EZ GO, and ManualMaster) and compare them with ELICIT.

First of all: the different types of ‘knowledge’

There are two fundamentally different types of knowledge in a factory: explicit knowledge is what you can write down. Work instructions, checklists, ISO procedures, step-by-step manuals. This knowledge already exists; it is just not yet digital, or it is fragmented across folders and systems.

Experiential knowledge is what resides in the minds of your best people. The decision rules that a senior operator applies in a split second: “If the temperature moves like this and the sound sounds like that, then I do this.” That is not recorded anywhere. It has never been written down. And it is exactly the knowledge that leaves when someone retires.

It is important to determine which knowledge you want to capture. This determines which knowledge management tool is suitable for you.

It is important to determine which knowledge you want to capture. This determines which knowledge management tool is suitable for you.

ManualMaster: When compliance and document management are your priority

ManualMaster is a Quality Management System built for organizations that need to maintain ISO certifications, require audit trails, and want control over document versions. Think of pharmaceutical companies, food safety environments, and manufacturing companies with heavy compliance requirements.

What it does well: managing procedures, version control, facilitating audits, CAPA workflows.

When to choose this? If your primary challenge is compliance, document management, and ISO processes. Not if you want to prevent experiential knowledge from walking out the door when an expert leaves.

EZ GO: When you want to go from paper to digital

EZ GO (formerly EZ Factory) helps factories transition from paper checklists and SOPs to digital work instructions. Mobile-first, user-friendly, and co-developed with operators on the floor.

What it does well: digitizing paper forms, supporting 5S audits, making standard tasks accessible to operators. In short: EZ GO makes existing instructions accessible. It does not extract expertise that is still in people’s heads.

When to choose this? If your floor still largely works on paper and you want to make that transition to digital standardization.

Poka: When you are looking for a broad connected worker platform

Poka (now part of IFS) is an enterprise platform for the digital workplace in production. It offers work instructions, communication tools, skills tracking, forms, and analytics. Large organizations such as Nestlé, Bosch, and Danone use it.

What it does well: distributing existing content, supporting operators with digital instructions, tracking skills, and standardizing processes at scale.

When to choose this? If you have a large production environment, want to professionalize your digital workplace, and already have good content that you want to scale. Not if your primary problem is that expert knowledge is at risk of being lost.

Poka, EZ GO, and ManualMaster have one common starting point: you provide the knowledge, and they make it accessible. They are built for knowledge that has already been captured. ELICIT is not.

ELICIT: When the knowledge itself is the problem

ELICIT extracts the experiential knowledge that has never been written down from the minds of your experts and makes it usable for everyone on the shop floor.

This happens through a structured interview process with your most experienced employees. An ELICIT knowledge analyst asks the questions that experts never ask themselves: not “what do you do?” but “how do you decide? What signals do you see? When do you deviate from the standard? What do you do when things go slightly differently?” In 3 to 5 interviews, the analyst captures that decision logic in a knowledge system.

That knowledge system is not just documentation. It is an interactive model, containing the mindset of your best expert, available to everyone in the organization. And that essentially means you help every employee think and act like your most experienced expert.

When to choose this? If you are dealing with one or more of these situations:

• An experienced expert is leaving soon and their knowledge is not recorded anywhere
• New employees need months to function independently in a complex workplace
• Quality or output varies significantly between shifts or between operators
• You want to be less dependent on the presence of specific individuals

ELICIT is unique in this list. Not only because it is the only one that unlocks knowledge, but also because it is the only one that works alongside other knowledge management solutions. Poka coordinates who does what. ManualMaster manages your formal documentation. EZ GO brings procedures to the floor. ELICIT captures why your expert makes certain decisions. That is the layer that other systems cannot capture.

ELICIT extracts the experiential knowledge that has never been written down from the minds of your experts and makes it usable for everyone on the shop floor.

Which tool fits your problem?

When choosing a solution, you must first determine which knowledge you want to safeguard.

Is it about explicit knowledge—procedures that already exist but need to be better organized or more accessible? Then ManualMaster, EZ GO, or Poka are strong options, depending on your specific situation.

Is it about experiential knowledge—the decision logic that is not yet recorded anywhere and leaves when your expert departs? Then ELICIT offers exactly what you need. For example, see how CONO Kaasmakers and Burg Azijn used ELICIT to make their experiential knowledge available to the shop floor.

Want to get to know ELICIT?

And do you want to know how ELICIT can work for you? Request a demo and discover it for yourself!