Control Checklists include everything an employee does in a typical day, listed in order of normal performance. Nothing forgotten or handled mistakenly—nothing left to chance!
A New Hire’s Typical Orientation
When someone is hired for a specific job, they’re generally given a printed JOB DESCRIPTION to go by—also a work area, maybe a desk/computer/phone, etc. Then an ‘older’ staff member may give them a tour of the business. Typically, “This is Jane, the receptionist… here’s the accounting/ sales/ production/ or other areas. There’s the lunch room and, of course, the bathrooms. Be sure to punch your time card in and out each day! If you need help, just ask anyone. Welcome to the business! Have a good day…”
Hopefully, SOMEONE (the one leaving) will give the new hire at least a week of hands-on training before retiring the job. However, one or even two weeks of training hardly scratches the surface of the experience gleaned by the one leaving the company.
What is Wrong with That Picture?
The JOB DESCRIPTION is short on, or totally devoid of, information about the details of processes, policies, protocol, or WHO else does WHAT. The real HOW, WHAT, WHO, WHEN and WHY, comes after weeks or months of trial and error—and, yes, a lot of interrupting others’ jobs to ask questions.
But, WHAT IF a new hire had all that information UP FRONT, at their fingertips?
WHAT IF, instead of a list of tasks, the new hire receives a DAILY ROUTINE CHECKLIST that not only lists tasks—but also allows instant, online access to procedures and policies for accomplishing those tasks?
EVERY JOB on planet earth has thousands of steps to remember each day—and most people work for years, doing all those steps by MEMORY. Most New Hires look at the “expert” at the next desk or work station and wonder when they’ll know ALL he or she knows.
However, the “expert” may be ten years younger than they look; frazzled, from too many years of hit and miss MEMORY work—that could have been avoided, using good systems!
Some Important Background
In 1993, we began building the manual systems to drive our company. We then compiled all those written procedures, for every area of our printing business, into a detailed Operations Manual. Subsequently, we built interactive software that would include all those features for organizing a printing company. Also included were templates for daily routine and quality control checklists, procedures, and policies, etc. All under one roof!
THE SOFTWARE WAS SO EFFECTIVE, and ran our business in such a powerful way, that I no longer had to be there all the time. AND—our waste ratio dropped from over 7%, to a consistent 1.5 to 2%.
My book—System Busters: How To Stop Them In Your Business—explains how to build systems—explains how to build systems, whereby small business owners can build the systems themselves. HOWEVER, building from scratch is very time-consuming. That’s what WE did—so others don’t have to! We developed our software with all the online documents available to other printing companies—SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO!
It’s not easy to turn-key a printing company, that’s why I share with those who will listen—SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO START FROM SCRATCH! We’ve already done the leg work! Hope that’s clear!
We spent thousands of hours over ten years, pouring over every detail, until totally-systematizing ALL processes, for ALL departments and positions. As a result, each system interacted with every other system, so an employee’s job became easier to manage. Consequently, the entire operation became easier, less stressful, and more efficient. Also, less costly! It still works that way!!
Every “Small” Task Assigned to Somebody
Before totally systematizing our printing company years ago, I found myself constantly asking frustrating questions like…
- “Why did we waste thousands of sheets of the wrong paper?”
- “How did we use the wrong ink on that job?”
- “Didn’t anyone read the job order?”
- “Why didn’t someone order the spare part for that machine before it broke down?”
- “How did so many employees take vacation in the same week—now, there’s not enough here to do a big job?”
More unnecessary questions that came up…
- “Who left the lights or A/C on, when they left?”
- “Who forgot to lock the front door and turn on the alarm system?”
- “Why wasn’t the company van gassed up?”
- “Why weren’t the supplies ordered for today’s job?”
- (And the biggee!) “Who used the last of the toilet paper or towels?” or…
Well, you name it! On and on it went—so many frustrations and lost revenue, due to mindless errors—until we learned a better way!
Here’s The Solution | Control Checklists
By assigning every task, even the smallest ones, to a specific employee’s Daily Routine Checklist, NOTHING is forgotten, or gets lost! Big tasks, or small ones, accomplished without intervention by management and stress—all due to simple control checklists!
It took our staff, with me in the lead, ten years to build this “mousetrap”—so now you have OPTIONS:
OPTION 1 – You can learn much by reading my book, to systematize your company. Thereafter, you can take ten years of YOUR life building the systems, YOUR “mousetrap,” for YOUR company! OR…
OPTION 2 – You can implement the online systems we developed during OUR ten years of building and tweaking—and hit the ground running! We’ve already done the leg work! DONE!
Free Stuff | So You Don’t Have to Start from Scratch
DOWNLOAD a couple of Prepress control checklists to use as templates by clicking on the graphic above. Just these two documents represent hours of revisions, to reduce waste to almost zero in Prepress. Note: Both FREE documents are on the same PDF. If you have any questions concerning these control checklists please contact us.
These checklists represent all the steps your Prepress is already doing—by MEMORY! Checking off the steps, AFTER completion of prompts, guarantees that nothing is forgotten!
Imagine every key position and major process using these type controls. It separates good from GREAT!
DOWNLOAD NOW—it’s FREE!
Did I mention? Great Systems Work!