Daily Production Checklist

Walk every machine that had maintenance on the prior shift and confirm all locks and tags have been removed by the authorized employee who applied them. Energizing a machine while a lock is still on the disconnect is the most common LOTO violation found in OSHA 1910.147 audits.

Confirm fixed guards are bolted in place, interlocked guards trigger a stop when opened, and light curtains stop the cycle when broken. Note any bypassed or jumpered safety device — that is a stop-work condition until repaired.

Reference the daily PM card on each machine. Way oil, hydraulic reservoir, and spindle lube are the usual checks on CNC equipment; chain and bearing grease on conveyors and assembly stations. Low oil at startup is a leading cause of unplanned downtime.

Press the E-stop and confirm the machine drops power and the controller indicates an E-stop fault. Reset and verify normal startup. Any E-stop that does not trip is a red-tag condition — pull the machine from production until repaired.

Material handler stages raw stock, hardware, and sub-assemblies at the work center per the kit list in the ERP. Verify quantity matches BOM plus standard scrap allowance — short kits force a mid-run material chase that kills cycle time.

Record lot or heat numbers on the traveler before the first piece runs. Aerospace and medical device customers require unbroken material traceability per AS9100 / ISO 13485 — recording at run-end from memory is how traceability records get rejected at audit.

Verify material certs match the heat number and grade on the work order. For mixed-alloy shops, run a PMI gun on stainless and high-alloy stock before release — wrong-alloy mix-ups in pressure-rated parts are a recall-class defect.

Check eye protection, hearing protection in marked zones, cut-rated gloves at trim and deburr stations, and metatarsal boots near presses and forklifts. The JSA posted at each work center lists the required PPE for that operation.

Five-minute toolbox talk at shift start. Cover the topic on this week's EHS calendar and walk through any near-miss reports filed in the prior 48 hours. Sign-in sheet documents attendance for OSHA training records.

Aisles, electrical panels (36" clearance), eye-wash stations, fire extinguishers, and emergency exits all need to be clear. Pallets staged in front of an exit door is a common citation under 1910.37.

Pull the program from the PDM vault — never the operator's local folder. Cross-check the program rev against the routing rev on the traveler. Stale programs surviving an ECN are a frequent cause of first-article failures.

Confirm each tool number, length offset, and wear offset matches the setup sheet. On a changeover, this is where most first-piece scrap originates — a leftover offset from the prior part run.

Quality measures every dimension on the FAI sheet — critical, major, and minor — before the work order releases to run. For aerospace work, complete an AS9102 Form 1/2/3 packet. Do not run a second piece until the FAI is signed off.

Pull samples per the ANSI Z1.4 plan on the control plan — typically every Nth piece or every hour, whichever comes first. Record measurements on the SPC chart so trends toward the spec limit get caught before a full lot drifts out.

Operator records actual count on the hourly board (or in MES). Two consecutive hours below takt is an andon trigger — shift lead investigates root cause rather than waiting for end-of-shift OEE numbers.

End-of-shift roll-up of every non-conformance opened, downtime event over 5 minutes, and scrap quantity by reason code. Accurate codes feed the weekly Pareto — guessing at downtime reasons hides the real bottleneck.

Move suspect parts to the red MRB cage with an NCR tag — do not leave them at the work center where they can drift back into the WIP flow. Quality engineer assigns disposition (use-as-is, rework, scrap, return-to-supplier) before the cage gets cleared.