The SOPs are in the binder. The binder is on the shop floor. The auditor is here Tuesday.

The situation

Three formats, zero searchability, and an audit every quarter

The plant has 60+ standard operating procedures covering everything from incoming material inspection to final packaging and shipping. They were originally written in Word, printed, and placed in binders at each workstation. Over the years, some were updated in Word and reprinted, some were hand-annotated on the printed copy and never updated in the digital version, and some were replaced by informal instructions that a shift supervisor gives verbally because "the written one is wrong."

QA checklists live in Excel workbooks on a shared drive. Each product line has its own workbook with tabs for incoming inspection, in-process checks, final inspection, and non-conformance tracking. The workbooks were built by different quality engineers over the years — column headers are inconsistent, some use dropdown validation and some use free text, and the "master" version is whichever file was last saved by whichever person touched it last. When the quality manager needs to pull non-conformance data across product lines, they spend hours copying between spreadsheets.

Dealer terms are the third silo. Pricing tiers, warranty terms, return-allowance policies, and co-op advertising rules are documented in Word files that sales reps customize per dealer and email as attachments. There is no master terms document — just dozens of slightly different versions floating in inboxes. When a dealer disputes a warranty claim, the sales team scrambles to find the version of the terms that dealer actually received.

The work

What Taz actually does with these documents

Taz collects every SOP, checklist, and terms document the manufacturer identifies — binder copies, digital files, and annotated versions. The inventory covers what actually exists, not what the document-control log says should exist.

• SOP digitization and reconciliation: Every printed SOP is compared against its digital version (where one exists) and against actual shop-floor practice (as described by operators and supervisors). Where the binder copy, the Word file, and the verbal instruction disagree, the conflict is documented with all three versions noted. Each SOP is converted to markdown with YAML frontmatter — title, procedure number, revision date, owner, equipment covered, and safety notes.
• QA checklist normalization: Excel workbooks are parsed and their checklists extracted into structured records. Column headers are standardized across product lines. Inspection criteria, acceptance limits, and measurement methods are mapped to a consistent schema. Checklists become portable documents that reference the SOPs they depend on — "Final inspection per SOP-042" links to the actual procedure.
• Dealer terms consolidation: Every terms document variant is collected, compared, and the differences cataloged. A master terms document is drafted with clearly marked variable sections (pricing tier, warranty period, return allowance) so future terms can be generated from a single source instead of ad-hoc Word editing. Each dealer's current terms are mapped to the master.
• Cross-linking: SOPs reference the QA checklists they trigger. Checklists reference the SOPs they depend on. Dealer terms reference the warranty procedures and return-handling SOPs. A user or AI assistant starting from any document can navigate to everything related.
• Gap and conflict register: Every missing SOP (referenced by a checklist but never written), every version conflict (binder says one thing, Word file says another), and every undocumented procedure (exists only as verbal instruction) is logged with a recommended owner and priority.

The deliverable

What the manufacturer receives

• Document inventory — Every SOP, checklist, and terms document in one register: document number, title, current location (binder/drive/email), last revision date, designated owner, and a status flag (current/conflicted/missing/verbal-only).
• OKF procedure bundles — Each SOP as structured markdown with YAML frontmatter (procedure number, revision, owner, equipment, safety tags, linked checklists). Portable across platforms — renders in a wiki, a git repo, a QMS, or an AI assistant's context window.
• Normalized QA checklists — Standardized checklists in structured format with consistent fields, linked to their governing SOPs. Exportable to whatever inspection tool the manufacturer adopts.
• Master dealer terms document — One source document with variable sections marked, plus a dealer-by-dealer map showing which terms each dealer currently holds.
• Maintenance checklist — A review protocol: who reviews each document category, on what schedule, what triggers a revision, and how to add new procedures to the bundle without breaking the cross-link structure.