Worked scenario
Who approved this, and what did they approve
Reprints are the most expensive quality failure in printing, and most of them turn on an approval that was given informally.
3 min read
A job runs, the customer says it is wrong, and the question becomes what was approved. The answer is somewhere in a phone conversation or a message thread, and it is rarely conclusive.
The cost is asymmetric
A reprint consumes stock, press time and a delivery date, and is usually absorbed by the printer to protect the relationship. One reprint can remove the margin from several successful jobs.
Informal approval is the norm
Customers approve by whatever channel is convenient, and printers accept it because insisting on formality risks the job. The workable middle is converting whatever was received into a record attached to the job before the press runs.
Causes, not incidents
Reprints tend to cluster around specific customers, job types or handover points. Recorded with a cause, that pattern emerges in a few months; treated as individual bad luck, it repeats indefinitely.
What changes
- Proof approval recorded against the job, with who and when
- The approved version retained and identifiable
- Verbal approvals converted into a record before the run
- Reprint causes analysed rather than absorbed
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