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Print Workflow and Processes: Tips for Walking Your Workflow

Print Workflow and Processes: Tips for Walking Your Workflow

Tips for Walking Your Workflow – Episode Summary

In this best-practice episode of The Print University, Ryan McAbee and Pat McGrew teach PSPs how to uncover hidden inefficiencies by “walking the workflow”—a tactical, team-driven approach to workflow analysis. This course is ideal for shops launching lean manufacturing training printing industry programs, implementing MIS software training for print production, or creating print shop employee onboarding templates that reinforce operational excellence.

The episode introduces the concept of the “workflow roller coaster”—a visual model showing how touchpoints can multiply without intentional design. Ryan and Pat recommend selecting your top three job types (simple, mid-range, and complex) and tracing how they move from order intake to invoicing. By including frontline staff, new hires, or third-party consultants in the process, shops reveal shadow workflows: personal spreadsheets, manual steps, or duplicated data entry.

They identify five high-impact checkpoints:

  1. Job Onboarding Paths – Understand all the ways customers place orders and deliver files.

  2. Automation Opportunities – Spot areas for preflight, batching, and dynamic imposition.

  3. Tool Utilization – Assess whether your software is being used as intended (especially scheduling and job costing).

  4. Change Management – Standardize and track mid-job change requests.

  5. Admin Efficiency – Close jobs faster, invoice sooner, and improve real-time reporting.

“Walking your workflow” isn’t a one-time task—it’s an annual discipline and a cultural shift that enables cost control, better margins, and scalable automation.

You Will Learn:

  • How to map, evaluate, and improve real-world production workflows

  • Why job onboarding and approval processes often contain hidden inefficiencies

  • How to discover shadow workflows and bottlenecks with cross-functional teams

  • Where automation (preflight, batching, imposition) can deliver quick wins

  • How software audits, admin workflows, and continuous monitoring reduce chaos

Who This Course Is For:

Operations managers, workflow architects, software admins, onboarding teams, and PSP executives implementing lean manufacturing training printing industry, outsourced training for print production staff, or MIS software training for print production

Time to Watch:

Approx. 30 minutes