Guides
Daily operating checklist for a print shop
The five standard operating procedures a print shop actually needs, what each one must contain, and how to write them so an operator uses them mid-shift.
What to take away
- A shop needs five procedures, not fifty. Most SOP folders are long because they were written to exist rather than to be used.
- An SOP that cannot be read while standing at a machine is not an SOP. One page, in order, with the decision points visible.
- Write the exception, not just the happy path. Procedures fail at the moment something is wrong, which is the only moment anyone reads them.
- Name a person for each one, and a date it was last checked against what the shop actually does.
- Safety procedures are written from the manufacturer's documentation and the current regulation, never from memory or from another shop's copy.
The five per-job procedures: intake and preflight, proofing and approval, press setup and changeover, finishing handover, machine safety
Everything else can wait until these exist.
Five core print shop procedures
- Job intake and preflight
- Proofing and approval
- Press setup and changeover
- Finishing handover
- Machine safety and maintenance
- Job intake and preflight.What has to be on an order before it is accepted, and what happens to a file that fails preflight. This one procedure removes more delay than the other four together.
- Proofing and approval.What a proof is here, what approval covers, who is allowed to accept one on the customer's behalf, and how it is recorded.
- Press setup and changeover.The sequence for taking one job off and putting the next on, including the checks that catch a fault before a thousand sheets carry it.
- Finishing handover.What arrives with a printed job, what is counted, and what is confirmed before the finishing operation starts.
- Machine safety and maintenance.Guarding checks, energy isolation before any maintenance, chemical handling and what to do when something is not right.
A shop with those five written and followed will outperform a shop with a thick folder nobody opens.
The daily checklist: open, mid-shift, close
The five procedures above are per job, not per day. Each one fires on a trigger: a file arrives, a proof needs approval, a job changes over, printed work reaches finishing, a machine needs attention.
The daily layer is short and it repeats. Write it on one page and keep it where the shift starts. The times below are typical, not fixed.
The daily checklist
| When | Task | Frequency | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open | Guards and interlocks on machines due to run | Every shift | 10 min |
| Open | Schedule checked against stock on hand | Daily | 5 min |
| Open | Exception notes from the previous shift | Daily | 2 min |
| Mid-shift | First approved sheet signed before the run continues | Per job | 2 min |
| Mid-shift | Ticket carries signature, count and exception note | Per job | 1 min |
| Mid-shift | Finishing count checked against the ticket | Per job | 3 min |
| Close | Finished work counted against tickets | Daily | 10 min |
| Close | Waste ink, solvent and rags logged | Daily | 5 min |
| Close | Workarounds recorded with their job numbers | Daily | 5 min |
Each row either feeds one of the five procedures or checks that it was followed. Preflight and proofing land at intake, press setup at changeover, finishing at the handover point. Guards are checked at open, and energy isolation before any maintenance.
What every procedure has to contain
| Element | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Purpose in one sentence | So a reader knows in three seconds whether this is the right document |
| Trigger | The event that starts it, stated plainly |
| Steps in order, numbered | Because someone will be reading it while doing it |
| Decision points | The places where the answer branches, with both branches stated |
| Exception route | What to do when the step cannot be completed, and who to tell |
| What gets recorded | The one or two fields that have to end up on the job ticket |
| Owner and last reviewed date | So it can be corrected rather than quietly abandoned |
The exception route is the part that gets left out and the part that gets used. An operator who follows a procedure until it stops matching reality and then improvises has an unwritten procedure, and the shop learns nothing from it.
Procedure elements and purpose
Element
- Purpose
- Know in three seconds
- Trigger
- Event that starts it
- Steps
- In order, numbered
- Decision points
- Where answer branches
- Exception route
- When step cannot complete
- What gets recorded
- One or two fields
- Owner and reviewed date
- Corrected, not abandoned
Why it is there
- Purpose
- Right document?
- Trigger
- Stated plainly
- Steps
- Read while doing
- Decision points
- Both branches stated
- Exception route
- Who to tell
- What gets recorded
- End up on job ticket
- Owner and reviewed date
- Last reviewed date
Writing one so it survives a shift
- Keep it to a single side. If it runs longer, it is two procedures.
- Write it standing where the work happens, with the person who does it. A procedure written at a desk describes an imagined job.
- Use the words the floor uses. Renaming a machine or a step in the document guarantees it will be ignored.
- Say what to check, not what to be careful about. Care is not an instruction.
- Number the steps so someone can say they stopped at four.
- Put the record fields at the end, in the order they appear on the job ticket.
Here is one page, filled in, as it would hang at the press.
- Purpose
- take job A off the press and put job B on without carrying a fault to the counter.
- Trigger
- the run is counted off and the schedule names the next job.
- Steps
- check the ticket is approved and the stock matches; wash up; fit plates; set ink and water; run 50 sheets; compare against the approved sheet; sign it off; record the count.
- Decision points
- if the sheet fails twice, stop and call prepress. If the stock is wrong, stop before plates are fitted.
- Exception route
- if register will not hold after two adjustments, tag the machine, tell the shift lead, note it on the ticket.
- Record
- first approved sheet signature, start time, count, exception note.
- Owner and last reviewed
- second press operator, each January.
That is the whole document, and it carries all seven elements from the table above.
Then test it the only way that works: hand it to somebody who does not normally do that job and watch them try. Every question they ask is a missing line.
Writing a procedure that survives
- Keep it to a single side
- Write it standing where work happens
- Use the words the floor uses
- Say what to check, not be careful
- Number the steps
- Put record fields at the end
The safety procedure is different
Four of the five procedures are yours to design. The fifth is written from authoritative sources, and getting it from another shop's folder is how errors propagate.
Safety procedure sources
- Guarding from manufacturer documentation
- Energy isolation per machine and task
- Chemical handling per hazard communication standard
- Storage and disposal per state and local
Guarding, interlocks and safe access come from the manufacturer's documentation for the machine in front of you, read with the current OSHA requirement. OSHA's printing industry pages show what applies in this trade.
Energy isolation before maintenance is a written procedure per machine and per task. The people doing it must be trained, not just informed.
Chemical handling follows the hazard communication standard: safety data sheets available to users, container labels, and training on label meanings. Storage amounts, secondary containment, and waste ink, solvent, and rag disposal are set by your state environmental agency and local fire authority. Write those steps after asking them about your site.
The wider map of who governs what is in the regulators a print shop deals with.
Keeping them alive
A procedure decays from the day it is written, because the shop keeps changing.
- Each procedure carries a named owner and a last reviewed date
- Any change to a machine, a stock or a supplier triggers a check of the procedures that touch it
- Every reprint or near miss is checked against the relevant procedure before anything else is discussed
- New staff are trained from the procedure, and their questions are treated as defects in it
- Superseded versions are removed from the floor rather than filed beside the current one
- Once a year, each one is read aloud by the person who does the job
That last item feels awkward and catches more errors than any review meeting. The daily rhythm, and where jobs actually wait, appears in how work moves through the shop. The sequencing rules that make the press setup procedure worth following are in building a schedule that does not slip.
Job tickets and the records these procedures produce are ordinary business records, and the IRS guidance on what to keep covers form and retention. The machine specifications behind the setup and safety procedures come from what each press requires to run.
Common questions
How long should an SOP be?
One page. A procedure that needs more than that is describing more than one job, and splitting it makes both halves usable.
Who should write them?
The person who does the work, with someone else asking questions. Written by a manager alone, they describe how the job is imagined to go.
How often should they be reviewed?
Whenever something they describe changes, and once a year regardless. A date on the document is what makes that possible to check.
Do small shops really need written procedures?
A shop of two people needs them most, because there is no second person to ask. The procedure is what covers the day one of them is not there.
