Most owners in this trade can recite last month's dispatch, the dealer outstanding and the price of polymer or steel sheet. Few can say how many of last Diwali's temporary hands are still on the rolls. People numbers surface when the cooker press stands idle or the hi-pot tester resigns. The signs were in the muster roll and the overtime book weeks earlier. A short monthly sitting reads them early, before the tub mould waits for a setter.
The review sheet
Month ____ | Prepared by HR ____ | Plant head ____ | Owner ____ | Date of sitting ____.
Q1. Who resigned or stopped coming this month, from which bench or section, and what reason did they mutter at the gate?
Q2. Of the hands hired for the last peak, how many remain, and who is on next season's call-back roll?
Q3. Which tasks can only one person do today: die setting, mould setting, formulation, blending, ruling, tool room repair?
Q4. Did any tester, checker or setter hold a lot, and did the hold stand or was it overruled?
Q5. Where did rejects, rework and dealer returns come from, and were the hands involved new, tired or untrained?
Q6. How many overtime hours did each section log, and which names carried the most?
Q7. How did muster look the morning after wages and after the latest festival, broken down by line?
Q8. On the floor walk, how many people in buffing, mixing, moulding, spraying and cutting areas had their gear on?
Q9. Which line leader's shift had the most exits, complaints or absences, and what help have they had?
Q10. What does the order book say for the next two months, and whom must we hire, train or call back now?
Actions for next month: 1 ____ owner ____ by ____ | 2 ____ owner ____ by ____ | 3 ____ owner ____ by ____.Who brings which answer
- HR or the office: exits with reasons, the returners' roll, muster after wage day and festivals, and open vacancies.
- Plant head: rejects by section, tester and setter holds, overtime by name and the one-person tasks.
- Safety in-charge or senior supervisor: the gear count from a walk done without warning in the week before.
- Owner or sales head: the order book, dealer schemes and any new model, fragrance or design that changes staffing.
Running the sitting
- 1
Fix one day and keep it
Choose a slot like the first Tuesday following wage day, so attendance data is fresh and the sitting does not drift.
- 2
Fill the sheet before the room
HR circulates the answers a day ahead. The sitting is for reading and deciding, not for counting.
- 3
Open with last month's three actions
Each owner says done, partly done or not done. Unfinished ones carry over before anything new is added.
- 4
Spend the time on two questions
Most months, two answers stand out. Give them the discussion and accept the rest as read.
- 5
Close with three actions, names and dates
More than three rarely gets done in a busy month. Fill in the bottom row of the sheet before the cabin empties.
Reading the answers trade by trade
The questions never change between trades, yet each product throws up its own warning signs. Read each answer against what usually goes wrong in your kind of unit.
- Fans, geysers and mixer grinders: set Q5 beside the last batch of warranty calls and see how many trace to assembly or final test.
- Cookers and utensils: under Q5, list buffing rejects by buffer, since piece rates can push speed over a mirror finish.
- Soaps, creams and oils: add the count of batch sheets with blanks or entries written at shift end.
- Cleaners and disinfectants: under Q8, count gloves and goggles at the blending tanks, not in the store cupboard.
- Buckets and storage ware: under Q5, put night-shift rejects next to day-shift rejects on the same mould.
- Toys: under Q4, ask what the child-safety checker wanted to stop and could not.
- Notebooks and pens: under Q5, count short-page or short-packet complaints from stationery retailers.
What the sitting should not become
It is no trial of individual operators. Names come up only where the owner has to act, like a setter worth keeping or a leader who needs backing. Exit conversations still happen separately, and disputes go through their own route. Sixty minutes is the ceiling. A review that grows into an afternoon is skipped by the third month.
Keeping it alive past month three
File every sheet in one folder so the trend shows by the sixth month. Exit reasons gathered under Q1 connect to our piece on reading exits from appliance, toy and toiletry floors. Q10 links to matching heads to dealer orders and to a printable headcount planner you can copy. If tallying eats HR's week, our people reporting work can draw the answers out of muster and exit records. Each question rests on a pattern described in the consumer products manufacturing hub.
