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Quality Control

Letterbox Mike

New Member
Does anybody use any sort of checklist for their employees for quality control? I'm working on one but and sort of drawing a blank, looking for suggestions. Just something to remind production people to dot their "i"s and cross their "t"s.

Thanks!
 

Marlene

New Member
no actual check list but have some one not involved in the sign check it out as they are more apt to see a mistake. things should match the work order so the order has to be written clearly. size, materials, colors, copy and layout, quantity, etc. pretty much if the order is well written, it creates a check list for the job.
 

petepaz

New Member
we have paperwork with all the job info
we have job folders with all the info
we have proof sheets
and still we get mistakes(spelling, material, colors, films, corner radius, shipping, and so on...)
it just depends on your people if you have good people who care working for you then your mistakes should be minimal but if your people are just collecting a pay check and are clock watchers and sit around thinking what you owe them
then you could have a lot of silly and or dumb mistakes

here is a copy of our job folder if that helps any
 

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Letterbox Mike

New Member
Let me explain a bit further... We are having an issue with an employee not checking his jobs himself, no matter what we do or say. He's all around an excellent employee, but is dropping the ball fairly regularly when it comes to QC. We're not prepared to take major disciplinary action against him yet as his positives far outweigh the negative. Nor does someone else in the shop always have the time to drop everything to inspect every job that goes out the door, although we try to as often as possible. Our work orders are effortless and clear and concise, the problem is there's currently no consequence to not reading it closely enough.

So what I want to do is attach a seperate form or checklist that has to be filled out at the completion of the job. My thinking is that an actual form that requires an action on an employee's part (in this case initialing or signing) will make them stop, pause, think and double-check their work on their own. It's a way of holding their hands without actually having to. There will be consequences if a job is either delivered to a customer wrong or brought up front for delivery (at which point it is considered finished) with mistakes. It's all about personal accountability, I can't continue to grow this business if I have to take accountability for every person's actions, they need to do that themselves, frankly.
 

animenick65

New Member
What you can't do is let everything fall on one persons shoulders, it doesn't work well and isn't fair. Everyone should be responsible for his/her part of the project and should do their best to try and spot things others may have missed. Its hard sometimes to really get a good QC system up and running. Its to the point here where everything is on my shoulders most of the time (whether thats right or not) so I have started checking things during the design phase as well as after things are taped or produced.
 

Marlene

New Member
unless you make standard stuff like 12" x 18" no parking signs, it is very hard to have a check list. if your order is written well, all the info needed to make the sign (or signs) is all there. you could ask for a check mark and initials for each step. it usually better if the person who made the sign isn't the person who checks it as most people do their best and assume that they did so and there are no mistakes. I do that myself and have had people find stuff that wasn't right to my suprise.
 

Letterbox Mike

New Member
The thing we're having trouble with isn't something that may or may not have been caught in production like spelling, correct color, etc., it's actual production mistakes.

A good example is actually something that happened today: customer came in to pick up their order for a banner and 4 single-sided yard signs. The yard signs were produced as 2 double-sided signs instead (prints were mounted to both sides)... This isn't really something that someone else needs to check up on, it's basic reading the work order and the mistake happened because people are trying to work to fast or are preoccupied with other thoughts. The bigger problem was nobody else who could or shoudl take resposibility for that was here when the customer was notified they were done and picked them up, so there wasn't even an opportunity for a second set of eyes to inspect the job. Had we had something in place that prompted the employee in question to recheck his work before calling the customer, we'd have a happy customer instead of an irritated customer.
 

Letterbox Mike

New Member
ask the employee "WTF?!? didn't you read the work order?!?"

lol, I did. Typical excuses. Like I said, overall the good points outweight the bad so I'm not yet prepared to make heads roll, which is why I want an idiot-proof system in place to prevent this from continuing to happen. If it does continue after the face, hell will probably have to be paid...
 

MachServTech

New Member
Had we had something in place that prompted the employee in question to recheck his work before calling the customer

Production staff should not be calling the customer. That's your weak link. If the production staff talks to customers their day gets sucked away, things get forgotten and misunderstood.
Up front, office or admin. staff should be the ones Receiving, Pricing, Scheduling and arranging for Shipping. They should also be the ones that are the final internal QC before it goes out the door. Production should be QC as well, just as long as they are still efficiently doing production.

just my 2 cents
 

econolinesigns

New Member
Insignia, having been through this, the question you should probably be asking yourself now is - how much is he costing me when all the little mistakes that happen each day are added up and do his positives really outway this cost.
 

cartoad

New Member
I understand where you are at, we developed a written work order that goes with every job, and have boxes for specific items to be checked and initialed for sales, art and production. Some of the items on the check list is to match work order to invoice, fonts used, how much art time, spell check, materials used and quantity, ect. The system works IF the employee will use it, if they fight it the errors continue and at some point in time you just cannot afford someone who is unable or unwilling to do as instructed and you should let them go.
 
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