I know MS Access and other relational databases are mostly a thing of a past, but ....
It is dirt simple to write one in Access, all you need is to establish what you want on your traveler.
I did mine in maybe 20 minutes. 2 tables, one is for the part, other is the operations/steps.
The part table has all the specifics ( part#, rev, part name, material, size, customer, etc etc, you pick and add whatever you need )
Operation table has op#, short description, detailed description, location, machine, program name, qty to start, qty to finish, operator, time etc etc etc.... pick and add whatever you need.
The link that ties the two together is a combination key field of the Part# and the Customer ( but you may feel free to link it any which way )
Now, as for actually entering the data, you don't need to rely on a lazy person ( such as myself would be )
What I do is whenever a new part comes in which has no traveler yet, I print out a few pages of blank travelers.
Same as the real one, but completely empty.
Then, I temporarily get off my lazy ass and fill in the part specifics ( p#, name material etc etc ) by hand with a pen.
The rest of the stuff however gets filled as we go, and gets filled in by whoever is most appropriate.
For ex.
OP10 - Order material - Source/size/length/pc etc etc - Office - date
OP20 - Receive material - inspect for damage, verify size, qty and material, file cert - Receiving Dept - date
OP30 - Saw cut to 3.45" - Finish part length 3.35, need min 3.4" to clean up - Automatic saw - qty started - qty cut
OP40 - Prep turn 1st side - Clean OD to 2", clean face, hold OAL to 3.4" min - CNC lathe - Pgm# 1234A - qty started - qty finished
OP50 - Reorder material - Idiot who wrote op30 f#cked up and part is actually 3.85 long - Office
etc
etc
etc
In any case, initially all this is done in ink, and done by the people who are involved with the actual steps. Not just programmers and setup guys, but operators
or the deburr guy even has the ability to put a note into the fields. They can even add a new, separate operation ( say check for straightness, deburr holes and finished edges or whatever )
And then, when the part is finished and we all agree on the approximate correctness of the hand written notes, we just find a poor soul ( in my case it's often the wife )
to enter the data into the database word for word, ( except for the qty and dates ) print it and file it with the B/P.
Next time the job comes up, it's all there.
If you want to change something this second time, then hand write it on the paper and someone at some point puts it in the putor. ( or not ... )