The QC Standard Operating Procedure— Five lanes for consistency, typos, citations, figures, and visuals ── an SOP that runs from record forms to escalation

01QC Is Not Proofreading ── Where This Installment Sits

Say "QC" on a production floor and most people picture a red pen catching typos. That is one slice of it. In this series, QC means the whole process of inspecting a near-final material against a defined checklist, mechanically, and logging a pass/fail with findings. It is not a veteran's intuition; it is a net that catches the same things no matter who runs it.

Of the ten phases and four gates from installment two (Lifecycle Design), QC sits at Gate C. After material clears Gate A (concept and primary sources) and Gate B (the regulatory map), QC is the checkpoint that confirms it was built to spec. Only then does Gate D (QA) issue the final quality-assurance verdict.

The aim here is to stop QC from depending on one person's skill. For each of five lanes — consistency, typos, citations, figures, visuals — we fix what to inspect, in what order, against what source, and where to record it.

02Split QC and QA First

Before writing the SOP, draw the line between QC and QA in plain words. Build procedures on a fuzzy boundary and you get double-coverage on some items and zero coverage on others.

The final regulatory call belongs to QA, but QC still inspects whether the constraints fixed in the regulatory map (04 MSA Guidelines, 03 Ad Standards) are actually reflected. If Gate B fixed "indications limited to approved wording," QC checks the text against the approved range. Whether an implication beyond that range crosses Article 66 of the Act (exaggerated advertising) is QA's call to make.

03The Whole SOP ── Five Lanes and Their Order

Divide QC into five lanes. The order matters: a downstream lane is wasted if its foundation has shifted, so build from the base up.

1. Consistency lane ── material matches the brief and design (clear this first; if it fails, the rest is moot)
2. Typo/notation lane ── characters, terminology, units, numbers
3. Citation lane ── trace to primary sources, completeness of references
4. Figure lane ── figure numbers, captions, transcription accuracy of data
5. Visual lane ── color, font, placement, PI/package-insert formatting requirements

Each lane runs in two stages: self-QC (the author) and peer-QC (a different person). The author self-checks against a sheet before handoff; peer-QC then re-inspects the same lanes independently. Routing only self-checked work to peer-QC lightens the peer load and pushes fundamental misses upstream where they are cheaper to fix.

04Consistency Lane ── Reconcile Against the Brief

Consistency QC reconciles the material against the brief, the design, and the locked copy. It does not hunt for new errors; it hunts for deviations from what was already fixed.

Always record the version you reconciled against. When tracing back later (installment ten, in preparation), if you never logged which version was compared, you cannot pinpoint when the error entered.

05Typo/Notation Lane ── An SOP for Terminology

Typo QC fails when it relies on re-reading. The SOP splits the unit of inspection and runs multiple passes. Try to see everything at once and the brain fills in meaning, skating over character-level errors.

1. Pass 1 (reverse read) ── read sentence by sentence from the end, cutting comprehension to see only the glyphs
2. Pass 2 (term list) ── reconcile against the house style sheet and product glossary (notation drift, okurigana, loanwords)
3. Pass 3 (numbers/units) ── two-person read-aloud of numbers, units, digits, %, significant figures against the primary source
4. Pass 4 (proper nouns) ── product, person, institution, trial names against approval info

06Citation Lane ── Back to the Primary Source

The heart of citation QC is whether a statement can be traced back to a primary source. Statements sourced from secondary material (slides, summaries, competitor decks) are themselves a breeding ground for error.

If a citation leads to an off-label implication, or risks crossing the activity constraints of the MSA guidelines (04 MSA Guidelines, 05 MSA Q&A), QC holds the verdict and escalates to QA. The final regulatory call is QA's; QC does not unilaterally stamp "no issue."

07Figure/Visual Lane ── Transcription and Format

Figures take in the most errors and surface the fewest. No matter how many times you read the body, your eye rarely reaches an axis label or a table cell. Stand figure QC up as its own inspection.

The visual lane also carries the format requirements demanded by the ad standards (03 Ad Standards) — type size and placement of cautions, for instance. Not design beauty, but mechanical confirmation that prescribed requirements are met.

08Record Forms and Escalation ── Operationalizing the SOP

An SOP only works paired with record forms. Inspect without recording and you lose the basis for the verdict, the means to prevent recurrence, and traceability. Here is the minimum QC sheet.

On a "fail," run the fix → re-QC loop and log the re-check result on the same sheet. On a "hold," escalate to QA. Writing the escalation criteria into the SOP keeps QC from hoarding regulatory judgment and puts the call in the right hands.

• Suspected implication beyond the approved range → QA (assess Articles 66 / 68)
• Mention of unapproved drug or off-label use → QA (assess Article 68)
• Suspected breach of MSA activity constraints → QA (04 MSA Guidelines call)
• Inconsistency with the JPMA code or creation guide → QA (06 JPMA Code / 07 JPMA Creation Guide)

Exaggerated advertising is Article 66, pre-approval advertising is Article 68, and the duty-of-effort on information provision is Article 68-2 — sharing this mapping with QC keeps the issue sharp at escalation. The record form also feeds traceability (installment ten, in preparation). With QC sheets in hand, you can later reconstruct when, in which version, by whom, and what was missed.