Writing standard Operating procedures can be problematic.
I recently was involved in writing operating procedures for 30 machines. The process was more difficult than it needed to. There were a number of interested parties each who wanted input into the SOP.Each Dept seemed to have its own Silo or empire
After completing the task I looked for existing publications on how to write SOP and what should be in them.There were none that I could find useful.
I started from the ground and determined what should be in an SOP.
Safety,record keeping,start up,monitoring product safety quality ,shutdown,cleaning,inspection while cleaning,preventative maintenance,Predictive maintenance, theory,error messages,Trouble shooting,training and assessment plans and training simulators.
From there it seemed logical to adopt a tree structure or scaffolding.
This would allow any medium type to be included into and SOP. It would allow existing documents to be referred to, avoid the need to re write anything just to put it into the SOP.
This structure allowed the use of a number of existing technologies for writing. It also linked into the unit standards for training. All the various silos from other dept can be incorporated because we link to the various documents fro each dept.
Training plans and job training cards can also be very easily made.
The book is aimed at those who wish to learn or improve how to write standard Operating Procedures
