SQDIP board template.
Build it online, print it for the wall, or take the Excel version.
7:00, at the board. Yesterday's square under Q is red: 96.1 percent first pass yield, bent connector pins. Ten minutes later that red has an owner and a due date. This builder gives you the board for that meeting: one ring per letter, one segment per day, the actions underneath.
Prefer a spreadsheet?
The Excel template has the same board: one row per letter, daily values that turn green or red against the target, met, missed and streak per letter, and an actions sheet.
Free, no email needed. Opens in Excel, or in Google Sheets through File, Import.
How to run the board
The short version of the method. The full one, with a worked example, is in the SQDIP guide.
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One metric per letter that the shift can move
If the team does everything right today, does the letter go green tonight? First pass yield at the line passes that test. Plant OEE does not.
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A red rule anyone can audit in a minute
One threshold, crossed or not. No yellow, no month-to-date averages. Set it as the target and choose whether green is at or above it, or at or below it.
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The team marks yesterday at handover
The outgoing shift marks the ring, the supervisor confirms. A board colored in by the supervisor alone at 4 pm is a report.
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Ten minutes, standing, same time every day
Safety first, then each letter in order. Green gets one word, red gets the fact in one sentence. No problem solving at the board.
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Every red gets an action
Fact, action, owner, due date, in the list under the rings. What the area cannot fix goes to the tier 2 meeting the same morning.
SQDIP, SQDC or SQCDP?
The letters matter less than the red rules behind them. Pick the set your plant already talks in:
- SQDIP Safety, Quality, Delivery, Inventory, Productivity
- The default for production areas where WIP and buffers are part of the daily fight.
- SQDC Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost
- When finance wants a cost letter. Give C a driver the shift controls, such as scrap pieces or overtime hours, not a currency figure computed elsewhere.
- SQCDP and SQDCP Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, People
- P stands for People here: attendance, crew or skill coverage. Useful where absenteeism is what breaks the plan.
- Your own Any letter, up to six
- Add E for Environment in process industries, or rename a letter. In the builder every letter is free text.
Each letter can show days of the month or months of the year. Tier 1 boards mark days; a monthly ring suits a tier 2 or tier 3 view of the same letter.
When the spreadsheet stops working
For one team and one board, this builder or the Excel template is enough. Print it, mark it, run the ten minutes. Most of what makes a board work is the meeting, and no software runs that for you.
It stops working at scale. Five areas means five files, retyped every morning. Tier 2 wants the same letters for the whole value stream. A red that needs another department lives in an email nobody can find a week later. In TeamGuru the same board is built in Reports, and the numbers come straight from your metric dashboards:
- Rings colored by each metric's own target rules, the same ones its dashboard uses
- Trend charts with the plan line, and a Pareto of the problems behind the reds
- Open actions under the letters, and an RCCA or 8D started right from the letter
- A presentation link for the TV at the board, slides switching on their own
What it does not do: send an alert when a letter turns red. The daily meeting is where reds get seen, which is the point of the board.
Questions
- Is the SQDIP board template free?
- Yes. The online builder and the Excel template are free, with no account and no trial. We only ask for an email address if you want us to send you a link to your board or to set it up in TeamGuru.
- Where is my board stored?
- In the link. Every change updates the address in your browser, and the board is kept in your browser's local storage as a backup. Nothing is sent to our servers unless you use Save or Set it up in TeamGuru; then we store your email address and the link.
- Why only red and green, no yellow?
- Because yellow is where misses go to hide. A letter is met or missed against one threshold, judged on what the shift could influence. A board that never turns red is lying: either the rule is too soft or the marks are averages. A yellow tolerance band has its place on management dashboards, and TeamGuru dashboards support one; at the shift board, keep it binary.
- How do I print the board or save it as a PDF?
- Use Print / PDF in the bar above the board. The page prints only the board, in landscape; choose Save as PDF in the print dialog for a file. PNG gives you an image for a deck or a shift report.
- Can I use the SQDIP template in Excel or Google Sheets?
- Yes. The Excel template has one row per letter, a column per day, and colors each value green or red against the target and direction you set. It counts met and missed days and the current streak, and has a sheet for actions. Google Sheets opens it through File, Import.
- What does Set it up in TeamGuru do?
- You send us the board with your email. We build it for your area in TeamGuru: the letters as metrics in Metric Dashboards, the board in Reports, the actions with owners and due dates. A person gets in touch within one business day and starts a free 14-day guided trial with you.
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