Recruiting Personnel

I shall point out some ideas regarding recruiting personnel suitable for medium to large manufacturing projects.

The above organogram would be typical for a small production or manufacturing facility working on a shift system. For a start-up manufacturing business, the shift system provides several benefits.

1) The shifts can grow as sales and the business grow.

2) Capital equipment use is maximized.

3) When operating a three-shift system, continuous production results in efficient operation due to minimal starting and stopping of the process.

Recruiting Managers

Whilst General Mangers and department managers usually are selected on past performance, one group of managers require specific qualities. These are production managers; the following also applies to Shift Managers and other senior production people.

In my opinion, production people are born with a certain production ethic, which is not usually in the skill set of other managers. Let us call this the production ethic, and particularly in a continuous production environment is invaluable. It shows itself in a resourcefulness required to keep production running safely and efficiently with a suitable team spirit. Production is the "blood" of any company and if it does not run consistently and evenly, then the company becomes sick.

Recruiting Shift Workers

It takes a special type of person to endure shift work for long periods. I would usually recruit personnel with a high percentage of people used to shift working; this would reduce the number of people who quickly become sick or have problems at home due to the irregular work.

I am also an advocate of rotating shifts with the production teams working nights, morning and evening changing every week with a month being one rotation. Regulatory people such as quality control should rotate in a different scheme to ensure their independence from the Production People on whom they may have to exert authority.

Management Organization

Whilst the general organization will follow tried and tested methods and largely be dependent on business culture in your country, I would like to point out one key function that I would suggest must be very specific. This involves Quality Control Staff in any manufacturing facility.

Quality Control Operators or Managers being the "Police" of production with the power to stop sub standard products reaching market are very important to any company. That is why whenever I set up a management system I ensure that QC personnel report to a senior director.

Why should QC report to senior management?

The quality that goes out of the gate effects the business of the company and in a competitive production environment the QC operator or manager could be overruled. If the "Police" have recourse to the Directorate then the upper manager judges any dispute as it is a business decision.

Training

Recruiting personnel should be started several weeks before the installation of manufacturing equipment. This allows time for notices to be worked and ensures that the personnel join the company at the stage the manufacturing process is installed.

This has a training benefit, particularly if the machinery is complicated. Probably the best training is from commissioning engineers as they install their equipment. It is my habit to make a DVD recording of these sessions for each piece of equipment. This starts a library of training Video's which can be used repeatedly as new operators and employees join the company.

Recruiting Personnel is not very different than for any other business but I feel the above points lead to a more efficient finished project.