Job traveler template: what to put on a shop traveler (with a printable checklist)

A job traveler is the piece of paper that keeps a part honest on its way through the shop. A good one answers three questions for anyone who picks up the cart: what is this, where has it been, and where does it go next? A bad one is a sticky note with a part number on it.

This is a practical list of what to put on a traveler, what to leave off, and how to keep the paper and the system in agreement.

What a traveler is for

A traveler (some shops say router or shop traveler) does four jobs:

• Identifies the work: which order, which part, which revision, how many.
• Gives directions: the operations in order, with the notes each station needs.
• Collects the record: who did each step, when, how many good, how many scrap.
• Ties the cart back to the system: so the office can find the order without walking the floor.

If your traveler only does the first one, you’re getting a fraction of its value.

The header: identify the job

Everything at the top of the traveler should identify the work without anyone needing to look it up.

• Order or job number, big enough to read from across the cart.
• Customer and the customer’s PO or reference, if they gave one.
• Part number and revision. The revision matters as much as the number.
• Description in plain words: “Front shock mount, LH”, not just “SM-104”.
• Quantity ordered, and the quantity started if you run over for setup scrap.
• Due date or ship date.
• Material: grade, thickness or size, and the heat or lot number if you track material traceability.
• Drawing reference: drawing number and revision, or where to find the current one.
• A QR code or barcode that opens this order in your system.

The routing: operations in order

The body of the traveler is the routing: one row per operation, in sequence.

Column	What goes in it
Op number	10, 20, 30… (gaps let you add a step later without renumbering)
Operation	Cut, deburr, bend, weld, machine, inspect, coat, pack
Work center	The machine or area where it happens
Setup / instructions	Program name, tooling, fixture, torque, weld procedure, anything the operator needs
Standard time	What the operation is planned to take (setup and per part)
Operator	Initials or name of who did it
Date / time	When it was done
Qty good / qty scrap	Counted at the end of the operation
Notes	Anything odd: a rework, a material swap, a question for the office

Give inspection points their own rows (first article, in-process, final), with a sign-off box, so they can’t be skipped quietly between two production steps.

Good and scrap counts at every step

Counts per operation are what turn a traveler from paperwork into information. If 50 parts went into bending and 48 came out, the next station knows to expect 48, and the office knows before ship day that the order is short.

Standard times

Putting the planned time on the traveler helps operators pace the work and helps supervisors spot an operation that’s running long while there’s still time to do something about it. It also gives you a baseline to compare actual times against when the job is done.

What to leave off

• Prices, costs and margins. Travelers get left on carts, photographed and seen by visitors. Keep money in the office system.
• Customer contact details beyond the name and PO. Operators rarely need a phone number.
• Old revisions. If the drawing changes, reprint the traveler and pull the old one.
• Clutter. A traveler that tries to be the whole job file gets ignored. Link to the drawing and the setup sheet instead of copying them in.

Paper, digital, or both

Paper has real advantages on a shop floor: it stays physically with the parts, it needs no device, and anyone can read it at a glance. Its weakness is that the information on it only reaches the office when someone carries it there or re-types it.

Digital-only gets times and counts into the system as they happen, but parts on a cart with no paper are anonymous, and a dead tablet stops the floor.

Many shops land on both: a printed traveler that travels with the work, carrying a QR code that opens the order and the operation in the system. The operator scans it to start and stop the operation, counts are entered there, and the paper still tells the next person what they’re looking at.

Keep the traveler and the system in agreement

The traveler should be printed from the routing in your system, not typed up separately. When the two are separate documents they drift: someone adds a deburr step on the paper, the system never hears about it, and the job’s cost never includes it.

A few rules that keep them aligned:

• Print travelers from the order; don’t photocopy old ones.
• Every routing change goes into the system first, then the traveler is reprinted.
• Rework gets its own operation row, not a note in the margin.
• When the job closes, the traveler’s counts and the system’s counts should match. If they don’t, find out why.

How per-operation timing works

When each operation is started and stopped against the order (by scanning the traveler’s code, or picking the operation on a tablet), you get actual time per operation. Compare it with the standard time and you can see which operations ran long and whether the quote was right.

For hourly crews, operation time works best inside the day clock: the person clocks in for the day, then onto operations. That way payroll and job cost come from the same hours, and time that isn’t on any operation shows up as shop time instead of disappearing. There’s more on that in day clock vs job clock.

Printable job traveler checklist

Use this to check your traveler template.

Header

• Order / job number (large)
• Customer and customer PO
• Part number and revision
• Plain-language description
• Quantity ordered (and started)
• Due / ship date
• Material grade, size, and heat or lot number
• Drawing number and revision
• QR code or barcode to the order

Routing (each operation)

• Op number in sequence, with gaps
• Operation name and work center
• Setup notes: program, tooling, fixture, procedure
• Standard time
• Operator initials, date and time
• Quantity good and quantity scrap
• Notes / rework

Quality

• First-article inspection row with sign-off
• In-process inspection rows where needed
• Final inspection sign-off before pack or ship

Leave off

• No prices, costs or margins
• No outdated revisions in circulation

Doing this in ShopJig

In ShopJig, fab orders are built from a BOM and a routing, and the traveler prints from the order with QR codes. Scanning a code brings up the order and the operation, people start and stop operations on the floor, and the order shows actual vs standard cost when it’s done. Operation time sits inside each person’s day clock, and scanning and labels work from the phone, iPad or a USB/Bluetooth scanner. More on job traveler software and machine shop software.