A monthly people review for forging and metal forming units: ten questions for the owner

Forge owners spend the month on billet prices, die steel, customer schedules and the power bill. People reach the desk only as emergencies. The heater on the pusher furnace phones in feverish on dispatch day. A manipulator crosses the road to an upsetter shop paying slightly more. A helper scalds his wrist on a cooling rack. Each looks sudden. Usually the warning had been sitting in some register for weeks.

Once a month, pull those registers onto one desk and read them against each other. You do not need an HR department for this. Owner, plant head, attendance clerk and the prompts below are the whole cast.

1. Tongs and furnace: which hammer or press has a single cleared manipulator or heater on any shift?
2. Dies: which blocks went back early for resinking, and whose changeovers were they?
3. After dark: who carried the most nights and Sunday banking turns, and are those the usual three faces?
4. Extra hours: whose overtime tops the sheet, and does one crew absorb every rush crankshaft order?
5. Joiners: who arrived last month, did each finish the six-day sheet, and who vanished before payday?
6. Leavers: who quit or simply stopped turning up, from which bay, after how many months, with what reason?
7. Burns and close calls: which scalds, crushed fingers or near misses were logged, and is every one closed?
8. Handover cards: how many came back unsigned, or blank on die condition and zone readings?
9. Trainees: which setter, heater or tempering clearances fell due, and which slipped again?
10. Floor requests: what did crews ask for, from fans to a second canteen sitting, and what did we answer?
CLOSE: pick up to three tasks; one owner and one finish date apiece.

• Skill grid cover rows answer prompts one and nine.
• Die cards, sorted by setter, then by shift, answer prompt two.
• Muster and roster, counted per head for nights, banking turns and overtime, answer prompts three and four.
• Joining files with their six-day sheets answer prompt five.
• Exit notes, even a single line jotted at the gate, answer prompt six.
• First-aid register and near-miss slips answer prompt seven.
• Furnace and press handover cards answer prompt eight.
• Shift meeting notes or the suggestion tin answer prompt ten.

Missing papers show up within two sittings, and they tell you what to start. The forging skill grid provides cover rows. Shift handover practice for hammers and furnaces is described in handling press and furnace shifts.

One event seldom means much. A heater with dengue is ordinary bad luck. A manipulator column holding one name on nights in three consecutive months is a training hole. The same trio leading the night count month after month predicts fatigue, a burn and, sooner or later, a resignation letter.

Prompt two calls for tact. Die returns grouped by setter can read like a charge sheet. Look first for a weak burner, a damp rack or a newcomer nobody trained, and talk it through with the crew before pointing at a person.

Prompt seven deserves suspicion when the answer is nil.

Prompts three and four belong together. Furnace heat after midnight, a Sunday spent relighting the pusher and an extra Saturday on rush flanges all land on the same bodies. When the night list and the overtime list carry identical names, rotate before the clinic visits begin. Heaters and manipulators are slow to replace, and tired ones drop tongs. Hammers, furnaces and trimming presses produce close calls every week. A forge reporting none has stopped hearing about them.

Prompt ten is the one owners drop. Crews who asked for a second pedestal fan and heard nothing remember the silence far longer than the request. A refusal with its reason, given at the morning gathering, still closes the loop.

1. 1

   A standing date

   Second Saturday of the month, mid-morning, door shut, mobiles face down on the table.

2. 2

   A pack prepared on Thursday

   The attendance clerk copies the cover rows, die returns, night counts and near-miss slips onto two sheets at most.

3. 3

   Old tasks first

   Each of last month's three is marked done, still open, or abandoned, and any reason for abandoning is said aloud.

4. 4

   All ten, in sequence

   Skip nothing. A prompt answered with no change still tells you something.

5. 5

   Three tasks chosen

   Choose the three whose neglect would cost most. One owner and a finish date go against each. Everything else rolls forward.

6. 6

   Word to the crews

   In-charges pass on the outcome at the next huddle, leaving out anything that touches one person.

Some problems reappear at every sitting. Typical ones: a grade ladder nobody can defend, an in-charge so busy at the hammer that he never plans, a night allowance the crews resent. A task line will not shift these. They call for redesigning grades, roles or pay. For shift-by-shift reject, absence and overtime tables, see the precision forging reporting page. Building a lean monthly pack is part of people reporting work.

Exit reasons in this trade are traced in why people leave forges and press shops. Crew, die and heat strains behind several prompts sit on the hub for forges and forming lines. To have the pack and the first few sittings set up with you, describe your unit.