July 2005: The Approval Process

Planning the approval process in advance can keep everyone involved on schedule.

Occasionally, the quality demands or complexity of a project require inspection and approval at the post press stage. If not properly organized by everyone involved, these approvals can become a source of time-consuming confusion. Here are a few guidelines to help you plan for a successful project approval process:

What's being approved? - First things first: Establish parameters for the job approval. The details of the inspection and approval process will drive scheduling and workflow decisions on our end. If you'll review and analyze the stock, for example, we'll need to refrain from collating the project prior to your arrival.

Who's coming? - Once you've determined what aspect of the project requires inspection, let us know who will be in attendance. Your contingent may include printing, prepress and final customer representatives. By providing this information in advance, we'll have an idea of what concerns are likely to be raised (and at the very least, we'll know how many chairs to set out).

Most importantly, approval teams must be empowered to make decisions. Once the inspection has been completed and the samples are met with approval, production will immediately commence. Returning to the office to report to supervisors or clients will delay production and increase costs.

Timing is everything - At the Riverside Group, we do our best to work within your schedule to establish appropriate job approval parameters. As a multi-shift operation, however, production can be unpredictable, and your project may not be ready for inspection at the exact time promised. To avoid scheduling conflicts and frustration, you may want to build some flexibility into your schedule to minimize downtime.

The Riverside Advantage
At the Riverside Group, we not only open our doors to your approval team, we're happy to provide a hands-on education about post press operations. Consider it Bindery 101 - we regularly offer it as service to local schools and organizations. We'll take you through case binding, perfect binding, mechanical binding, die cutting, foil stamping, laminating and many other processes. Give us a call today to get started crafting your next post press masterpiece.