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Print Workflow and Processes: Job Onboarding

Print Workflow and Processes: Job Onboarding

Job Onboarding – Episode Summary

In this critical episode of The Print University, Ryan McAbee and Pat McGrew shine a spotlight on job onboarding—a frequently overlooked but high-impact stage in print production. Often dismissed as administrative, this process can make or break profitability. Whether you’re leading printing industry training programs for new employees, implementing MIS software training for print production, or building lean manufacturing training printing industry initiatives, this session provides the foundational knowledge to improve operational performance.

Job onboarding encompasses every touchpoint from the moment a customer places an order to the point it enters the production workflow. When mismanaged, it leads to excessive manual work, production delays, reprints, and lost revenue. Pat and Ryan explore how flawed estimates, incomplete specs, and disconnected systems (like MIS, CRM, or prepress) compound waste and drive up labor costs.

They stress the value of automation—via online storefronts, EDI/API connections, and preflight systems—to reduce human intervention, standardize data capture, and eliminate back-and-forth communication. Centralizing customer records, creating consistent product templates, and applying preflighting at multiple workflow stages (not just prepress) ensure files are accurate and ready for production.

Ultimately, effective job onboarding reduces touchpoints, accelerates job readiness, and safeguards margin. It’s the first—and most vital—step in a profitable print workflow.

You Will Learn:

  • Why job onboarding is often the most expensive inefficiency in print workflows

  • How to minimize manual entry, rework, and downstream errors through automation

  • Best practices: standardized product specs, template-driven estimating, multi-stage preflight

  • How to centralize customer data and normalize order intake methods (email, portals, APIs)

  • Why onboarding accuracy, repeatability, and automation drive profitability

Who This Course Is For:

Print shop managers, CSRs, estimators, MIS/ERP admins, onboarding specialists, and operations leaders building outsourced training for print production staff or improving prepress automation training (Kodak Prinergy, Esko)

Time to Watch:

Approx. 25 minutes