Case Study
Getting the procedures out of people's heads: an SOP program for a multi-plant fuel distributor.
- Industry
- Fuel Distribution
- Operation size
- Multi-plant regional distributor
- Engagement
- Ongoing on-site work: procedures
Anonymized: Client name withheld; no approval for named publication is on file. Supplier, system, site and staff details are generalized. The work, the checks and the current status are reported as they stand.
By Jacob Johnston | Published | Updated
Summary
A Colorado fuel distributor ran its plants, deliveries, pricing, safety, lubricants and accounting on procedures that lived in people's heads, in legacy files from systems retired years ago, and in a supplier manual nobody had adapted. TNDS built a procedure program across six series, more than 60 procedures so far, on one source of truth that renders the Word documents, the worksheets and a builder the plant crews can write in themselves. Every procedure stays a draft until it has been walked with the crew that does the work.
What the operation looked like before
Each plant did the job its own way, and the reasons were sound: different tanks, different gauges, different dispatch times. None of it was written down in one place. The accounting procedures on file spanned three generations of systems, and nobody had consolidated them after the last migration. The lubricant product integrity procedures were a supplier's 2018 example set, never adapted to this company. When the person who knew the job was out, the job slowed down.
What was actually broken
Knowledge held by people, not paper
The way each plant opened, sticked tanks, closed and counted at month end lived with the plant crew.
Procedures for systems that no longer exist
Legacy accounting documents walked screens from systems retired years earlier, mixed in with newer job aids that contradicted them.
Contradictions nobody could see
With procedures scattered, two documents could give different water limits for the same tank work and nobody would notice until both sat in one binder.
One template could not fit every site
Plants run different equipment. A procedure written for one site overstated the work at another.
What TNDS did
Draft from what the operation already has, put every draft in front of the people who do the work, and never call anything final until it has been walked with the crew.
Step 1
One source of truth per procedure
Each procedure is a structured data file. The Word document, the printable worksheet, the PDF and the HTML builder are all generated from it, so approved changes can flow from one master copy into each generated version. A document register reads each procedure's version and status straight from the source.
Step 2
A worksheet the crew can mark up
Every procedure prints with a second page: current process and diagram on top, new process and diagram on the bottom, left blank for the crew to draw in pen. The plants also get a builder they can write their own site procedures in.
Step 3
Six series, built from what was already there
Order to cash for tank wagon, transport, bobtail and unloading. Bulk plant operations as a per-plant set. Pricing. Safety, with a driver qualification packet. Lubricant product integrity, adapted from the supplier's program manual with every source file accounted for. Accounting, rebuilt from three eras of legacy documents.
Step 4
Four gates before anything is final
Open items closed, walked with the crew, every bracketed placeholder resolved, and a named approver who actually approves. Process owners are written as roles, never as names, so the documents outlive staffing changes.
Tools used
Plain documents the company can keep, generated from files that can be versioned.
- Structured data files as the single source for each procedure
- Generated Word documents and PDFs in the company's own branding
- An HTML procedure builder for the plant crews
- A live document register of version, status and owner role
- Google Shared Drive for distribution and markup
Where it stands
- More than 60 procedures drafted across six series, each with its open items tracked
- The first plant review came back saying the drafts were essentially the process they already follow
- Plant markup corrected the drafts, including one that had every tank hand-sticked daily when a sight gauge is the routine read
- Putting the procedures side by side surfaced conflicting limits that had lived in separate documents
- Legacy procedures for retired systems are retired or bracketed instead of quietly copied forward
- Nothing is marked final until it has been walked with the crew that does the work
Why it was built this way
A procedure nobody walked is a guess with a header on it. The value came from the crew correcting the drafts and from seeing every procedure side by side. One source of truth per document is what lets that feedback land once and show up everywhere.
If your operation looks like this
Start with an Operations Assessment. TNDS works with your people to understand the operation, then provides a written priority order and a quote for the fix work.
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