Print Shop Daily Production Checklist

A print shop is part manufacturing, part service business, part design studio. Customers expect rush turnarounds, perfect color, and no errors. The equipment is expensive and temperamental. The margin on any single job is thin. The shops that survive are the ones that treat every job like a production line, with a routine that does not skip steps.

Opening the Shop

The first hour is about preparing the equipment and reviewing the day's queue.

Unlock the shop and turn on all lights
Power up presses, cutters, and finishing equipment
Allow temperature-sensitive equipment to warm up to operating spec
Run color calibration on digital and offset presses
Review the day's production queue with deadlines
Confirm paper stock for the day's jobs is staged and ready
Confirm inks, toners, and consumables are stocked

Pre-Press

Pre-press is where errors get caught before they become expensive. Skipping pre-press is how a shop ends up reprinting 5,000 brochures with a typo.

File check. Confirm fonts are embedded, images are high resolution, bleeds are correct.

Proof every job. Digital or hard proof depending on the job and the customer's expectations.

Send the proof to the customer with a clear approval request. No work starts without written approval.

File the approved proof with the job ticket. Disputes about color or content are settled by the approved proof.

Press Setup and Run

Every job follows the same press routine.

Pull the approved proof and the job ticket
Load the correct paper stock
Set up the press to the job's specs
Run a press check before committing to the full run
Have a second set of eyes confirm the press check
Run the job, sampling sheets throughout for color and registration

Finishing

After the press comes finishing: cutting, folding, binding, stitching, or whatever the job requires.

Set up cutters to the job's measurements
Run a test piece before the full cut
Inspect samples at intervals
Quality check the finished product against the proof

Quality Control

Every job gets a final QC before it goes to the customer. This is the last chance to catch a problem.

Inspect a representative sample, not the whole run. Look for color drift, missing prints, smudges, or cutting errors.

Compare against the approved proof. Not against memory.

Package the job for the customer with a clean job ticket. Include any extras or pickup notes.

Customer Pickup and Delivery

Confirm the customer's pickup method and time
Photograph the finished product for the job record
Confirm payment per the customer's terms
Hand off any leftover stock or files if the customer requested them

Closing the Shop

Final press cleaning per the manufacturer's daily schedule
Cap and store inks and toners properly
Sweep the production floor and clear cutter beds
Confirm tomorrow's first jobs are staged
Lock the shop and arm the alarm

Why Print Demands a Logbook

Every job in a print shop is a small project with its own specs, deadlines, and approval chain. Without a logbook, jobs get mixed up, proofs go missing, and reprints cost the shop its margin. The disciplined shops document every step.

How MyTeamTasks Helps

A digital production checklist on a tablet at every station means the operator sees the job's specs, the proof, and the QC steps without leaving the press. The owner can pull up the day and see which jobs are on schedule, which are stuck, and where the bottleneck is. Reprints go down because pre-press caught the error. Margins improve because the routine is the routine.