Imagine two plumbers, carpenters, builders, whatever you like, working together. They're both professionals, they both have skills and experience. They both have toolkits too. Now imagine that one only brings an imperial tape measure whilst the other's is metric... Or that one orders nothing but crosshead screws, unaware that his colleague only has flat-bladed screwdrivers...
Put another (slightly more academic) way, SOPs are fundamental to the manner in which the crew interfaces with each other and the aeroplane, and they provide the framework within which this happens. You could do it without SOPs, but it would be hard work and imprecise at first, there'd be uncertainty, and some tasks would be missed while others were done twice. In fact, what would happen is that you'd start building your own set of ad hoc SOPs, which you might then formalise.
So, in a way, poor SOPs are better than no SOPs at all. But the best SOPs bring a lot to the party.
Last edited by Kit d'Rection KG; 30th November 2006 at 16:16.
Reason: spilling orreur