A new operations manager was worried about how bad the numbers were looking. It didn't make any sense: they had customers, and things were getting printed in time. After doing some research, he realized that the problem wasn't in the printing process, but in the system. The "Awaiting Customer Approval" status was eliminated, and now, every order was marked "In Production" as soon as the proof was sent to the customer, even if they hadn't approved it yet.
Sometimes, when a new manager joins a company, they want to change things, no matter how important they are to the working process. It's logical: they are new, they want to stand out, and fix every issue in a matter of days. This leads them to make decisions that sometimes aren't the best ones, causing struggles and new problems that weren't there before. And this has to do with focusing more on results rather than the importance of the process.
In the case of a print shop, having the customers review the material before it is printed is a fundamental part of the process. Imagine having to run a bunch of big banners, only to realize that a phone number is incorrect, or the colours aren't vibrant enough. Yes, that implies having to re-print everything again. That's exactly why we understand the importance of having the material be approved by the client.
When the manager decided to eliminate that status, some things took twice the time to get printed because they had to review every single note, or when there was something that needed to be checked, the client didn't have a way of knowing this, because the system told them that the material was being produced. We can put ourselves in the shoes of the employee who had to deal with the call of a very angry customer, because he couldn't believe that the order was in production for nine days straight.