Insights
Independent perspectives from the printing and packaging industry. Challenging established thinking, questioning decisions and examining where responsibility really lies — from concept to consumer.
Your Printing Problem Might Not Be a Printing Problem.
By Derek Peacock | Founder, Print Governance™
When something goes wrong in a printing company, where does management look first?
The press. The operator. The ink. The substrate.
Perhaps another meeting with the quality department.
But here's a question I believe more printing company owners should be asking:
What if the printing problem was created long before the job reached the press?
The Press Is Often Where the Problem Is Discovered. Not Where It Started.
I've spent years watching printing companies investigate problems that were never created by the printer.
A specification was unclear. A customer expectation was never properly agreed. Sales made a commitment without understanding the production consequences. Prepress interpreted something differently. Quality applied a tolerance that nobody had properly challenged.
Then the job reached the press.
Suddenly, the printer was expected to make everything work.
When it failed, management demanded an explanation from production.
My question is simpler.
Why was production left to resolve decisions that should have been made elsewhere?
This is where I believe the real problem begins.
Printing companies invest heavily in machinery, technology, colour management and quality systems. Yet many still struggle with something far more fundamental.
Who owns the decisions made before production begins?
Who has the authority to challenge an unclear specification, an unrealistic customer expectation or a commitment that production cannot reliably deliver?
Without clear ownership, those decisions eventually become problems for the printer.
This is not simply a production issue. It is a management issue.
Sales, prepress, purchasing, production and quality all influence the final printed result. Each department makes decisions, but those decisions are not always connected.
When responsibilities are unclear, problems move from one department to another until they eventually reach the press.
By then, the cost of correcting them is often considerably higher.
The question is not just whether the printer can produce the job. It is whether the business made the right decisions before asking the printer to produce it.
Experience and Relationships Matter. But What Happens When People Leave?
Throughout my career, I've seen how much depends on experienced people and the professional relationships they build.
When a printed result did not meet a numerical tolerance but matched the approved design intent, the answer was not always to reject the job.
It required a discussion involving the printer, quality management and, where necessary, marketing and design.
Those discussions worked because the people involved understood the process, respected each other's judgement and had the authority to make decisions.
But there is a weakness in that approach.
When one of those people leaves, does the decision-making process remain, or does it leave with them?
Good Governance Should Not Leave When People Do.
Experience is valuable. Professional relationships are essential. But neither should be the only thing holding a company's decision-making process together.
When experienced people leave, their knowledge, judgement and relationships often leave with them.
The business may still have its procedures, quality standards and management systems. But does it still have the same ability to make informed decisions when something falls outside the normal process?
This is where governance becomes important.
Good governance does not replace experience or professional judgement. It establishes clear responsibility, decision-making authority and accountability so that the business is not dependent on particular individuals.
The real test of governance is whether the business can continue making the right decisions when the people who previously made them are no longer there.
Who Has the Authority to Make the Decision?
Consider a situation familiar to many packaging printers.
The printed result matches the approved design intent, but a numerical colour tolerance has not been achieved.
Production believes the job is acceptable. Quality identifies a failure against the specification. The customer urgently needs the packaging on the shelf.
Who decides whether production continues, the job is held or an exception can be authorised?
Is it the printer? The quality manager? The brand owner? Or does the decision depend on whoever has the strongest relationship with the customer?
In my experience, these situations can be resolved through professional discussion involving the right people, including marketing and design when necessary.
But that discussion must take place within a clear framework of responsibility and authority.
A measurement identifies a condition. It does not, by itself, establish who has the authority to decide what happens next.
From Individual Judgement to Organisational Accountability
Printing companies cannot eliminate every unexpected situation. Nor should they attempt to replace experienced people with procedures.
The objective is to ensure that experience operates within a clear decision-making framework.
Who is responsible for identifying a problem?
Who has the authority to challenge a specification, stop production or approve an exception?
Who must be consulted before a decision is made?
Who records the decision, its justification and the agreed corrective action?
Most importantly, who verifies that the same problem will not simply return on the next job?
These responsibilities should not depend on personal relationships or on whether a particular individual happens to be available.
Good governance protects professional judgement by giving it structure, authority and accountability.
That is the principle behind Print Governance™. It examines how decisions are made across the business, not simply how well the printing press performs.
The Real Question Is Not Whether You Can Print It.
Printing companies are often judged by their ability to produce a technically acceptable result.
But technical capability alone does not guarantee that the right decisions have been made.
A printing press cannot correct an unclear customer expectation, an inappropriate specification or a decision nobody was authorised to challenge.
Those are management responsibilities.
Throughout my career, I have seen how experience, professional relationships and sound judgement can resolve difficult production situations.
The challenge is ensuring that the business retains that ability when experienced individuals are no longer there.
This is why I established Print Governance™.
Not to tell experienced printers how to print, but to examine how decisions are made, who has the authority to make them and whether accountability exists across the entire process.
Because the real question is not simply whether you can print the job. It is whether the right decisions were made before the job reached the press.
Derek Peacock
Founder, Print Governance™