'Best practices' must be documented Washington DC

For the past couple years I've been involved with an effort to establish national skill standards for the woodworking industry. Primarily, we're looking at basic — and some advanced — wood processes for the secondary industry, including finishing, which I hope will not be deemphasized once the working draft is completed.

Unlike a lot of other industries, there are an incredible number of facets to fashioning wood-based products, from rough mill to CNC machining to finishing to final inspection. One important aspect of this project is to precisely document what these skill standards are.

Phil Stevenson penned an excellent article, beginning on page 22, on the importance of developing and updating a written Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for your finishing operation, no matter what size company you work with. This is an important element of any universal skill standards document.

I might take Phil's SOP advice one step further. Creating an SOP file on standards and procedures is extremely important, particularly, as Phil says, if you have a finishing department culture of "tribal knowledge," where one lead finisher has all aspects of getting that perfect finish in his head and not written down.

Documenting these activities and procedures is one thing; capturing spray finish technique and other nonmeasurable skills is also critical. As Phil says, when the lead finisher or supervisor leaves the company or cannot work, that knowledge is lost or difficult to retrieve.

One way to head off this problem would be to videotape these expert finishers as they go about their craft. This would include a running commentary while the expert does his or her thing; either that or conduct a taped interview with this person or persons.

This tape could be updated as needed, and it could be used as a valuable training component for new finishers or those who seek a cross-training opportunity.

Of course, another useful training exercise would be to retain your copies of Finishing and, time permitting, catalog the stories by topic.

Just a thought. Keep on finishing!