SOP manufacturing procedure template

This plans the control side of a manufacturing SOP. Enter the operations in the procedure, the quality checks per operation, the batch runs per week, the minutes a check takes, the operators per line, their loaded rate and your deviation rate as a percent of runs, and the page returns the checkpoints per batch, the sign-offs per batch, the check minutes per batch, the check hours and cost per week and the deviations to investigate each week at your rate. A production procedure is steps with checks between them; this is how many checks, and what they cost.

A checkpoint per operation, and a sign-off per operation plus release

Ten operations with a check each is ten checkpoints per batch, and each operation is signed by the operator who did it, with a release signature at the end. The page counts both so the batch record has the right number of lines before the first batch runs, and so a procedure with thirty checkpoints is recognised as one that will be skipped under pressure.

Check time is production time

Ten checks at three minutes is half an hour per batch, and at twenty batches a week that is ten hours of operator time a week spent checking rather than making. The page prices it at your loaded rate so the checks are a visible cost, which is the only way a check that catches nothing gets removed and a check that catches everything gets kept.

Deviations are the batches the procedure did not cover

Every deviation is a batch where the SOP and the shop floor disagreed, and each one is an investigation. The page applies your own deviation rate to the weekly runs so the investigation load is a figure; a rising rate is the procedure asking to be rewritten, and the deviation records are where the rewrite starts.