What is a job card?

A job card in one paragraph

A job card is the single sheet that goes with a job from the first cut to the delivery note. It says what is being made, for whom and by when; it lists the stages the job passes through; and it records who did each stage and when. It is the shop-floor record of the job. When a customer phones asking where their order is, the job card, or the board it feeds, is how you answer in ten seconds instead of ten minutes.

What goes on a job card

The best cards are short. Everything on them should answer a question somebody asks every day. A useful card carries:

• A unique job number. Never reused, never shared between two jobs. It ties the card to the quote, the drawings, the material and the invoice.
• The customer and their order number. So the job can be matched to a purchase order without a search.
• The drawing number and revision. Most expensive mistakes in a fabrication workshop start with someone building to the wrong revision.
• Quantity and a clear due date. The due date should be the easiest thing on the card to see.
• A short description of the work. A few lines on what is being made, not a copy of the specification.
• The stages, in order. For example: engineering, material, cutting, fabrication, welding, QC inspection, surface preparation and painting, dispatch.
• Who did each stage, and when. Date and initials at the start and the finish, plus a signature for the stages that matter.
• Sign-offs. Who completed the work, who checked it, and who released it for dispatch.
• Notes. Room for what always comes up: a revision, a change from the customer, a delay and its reason.

If you work to a quality system, the filled-in card is also a record of the process the job followed. A card that shows who inspected the job, and when, is worth having on file. You can download a free job card template with all of these blocks and print it today.

Job card, work order or traveller?

Different workshops use these words differently, and the lines blur. In most South African workshops, "job card" is the everyday word for the sheet that goes with the work. Broadly:

• A quote is the price you gave the customer. It says what you promised, not how the job is going.
• A work order is usually the instruction to do the job, often raised in an accounting or ERP system. Many workshops print it and use it as the job card.
• A traveller or route card is the manufacturing term for the document that follows parts through a fixed route. A job card does the same work in a workshop where every job is a little different.

You do not need to settle the vocabulary. What matters is that one document goes with the work, has a unique number, and gets signed as the job moves.

Paper or digital?

Both work, for different reasons. Paper survives gloves, grinding dust and a welding bay; it needs no battery, no signal and no training, and everyone already knows how to initial a box. Its weakness is the office: nobody can see a card that is lying on a bench at the far end of the workshop.

A digital system fixes that. Everyone sees where every job is, without walking the floor, and a late or blocked job shows up before the customer phones. Its weakness is the floor: if people have to stop work and find a screen, they will not.

The practical answer in many workshops is both: a printed card that travels with the work, and a live record that the office can read. That is how Fabricata Flow works. It prints the card with the job's details and stages filled in, and a QR code on the card opens the live job on a phone.

Getting started in your workshop

1. Start with one route. Pick your most common type of job and write down the stages it really goes through. Do not design the perfect card for every job on day one.
2. Give every job a number before it reaches the workshop, and write it on the card, the drawing and the material.
3. Decide who signs what. Who may start a stage, who finishes it, who checks, who releases. People sign willingly when the rule is clear.
4. Make the card travel. Clip it to the drawing, or use a sleeve. The card must be where the work is.
5. Look at the cards every day. Ten minutes with the foreman: what is late, what is stuck, what is next. Cards that nobody reads soon stop being filled in.
6. File finished cards by job number. Six months later, you will be glad you did.

Mistakes that make job cards fail

• Too many fields. Every extra box is another reason not to fill the card in. If nobody reads a field, remove it.
• The due date is hard to find. It is the first thing everyone looks for.
• The card stays in the office. A card that does not travel with the work records nothing.
• Nobody owns it. Each job needs one responsible person who makes sure the card is filled in and closed.
• Jobs are closed without a check. The release signature means something only if someone really looked.
• Numbers are reused or skipped. A job number that is not unique stops being a reliable way to find anything.

Where to go next

Print a card today with the free job card template, then read how to track jobs through the workshop once you have a few weeks of cards behind you. When writing the same details on every card becomes the slow part, try Fabricata Flow free for 14 days.