A skill matrix template for chemical and specialty chemical makers (free download)

A chemical plant needs its skill matrix to answer one question before every shift. Who may do which task tonight, and where are we a single absence away from trouble? The layout below is the download. Paste it into a spreadsheet as it stands, with one tab per section: tank farm, reaction, separation and drying, filling and loading, utilities.

Header: plant, section, rota letter or general shift, month, compiled by, countersigned by.
Left-hand columns: employee code, name, role, and whether employed directly or through a named contractor.
Tank farm tasks: tanker decanting, tank dipping, transfer pump start-up, nitrogen blanket check, drum pump decanting.
Reaction tasks: solids charging through the manhole or hopper, liquid charging by flowmeter, charging under nitrogen, bottom valve sampling, console work for each reactor tag.
Separation and drying tasks: filter press opening, nutsche discharge, centrifuge loading and spin, vacuum or tray dryer unloading, scrubber caustic make-up.
Filling and loading tasks: drum filling and bunging, label and batch code check, tanker top loading, dispatch sheet sign-off.
Utilities tasks: boiler or thermic fluid heater watch, effluent plant dosing, cooling tower round.
Permit and emergency roles: permit receiver, permit issuer, line blinding, fire team, first aider, emergency shutdown for each unit.
Inside each cell: clearance grade, date granted, refresher due, countersigner's initials.
Clearance grades: None. Aware, has watched it done. Watched, works with a cleared person beside him. Solo, works alone. Coach, may teach and recommend clearance.
Beneath each column: how many people on this shift hold Solo or Coach, highlighted red when that number is one or zero.
Far right: the next task this person will learn, with a target month.

First drafts tend to list the obvious production jobs and miss the awkward ones. These are the tasks that cause trouble on nights precisely because nobody thought to count who can do them.

• Blinding or deblinding a line before a permit job, and confirming the spade is in.
• Drawing a sample from a pressurised or hot line through the sample cooler.
• Decanting a fuming acid drum with a drum pump instead of tipping it.
• Charging a reactor that sits under nitrogen without losing the blanket.
• Making up scrubber caustic when the liquor is spent at two in the morning.
• Choosing the right assembly point from the wind sock during an alarm.
• Working the emergency dump or quench on each reactor that has one.

1. 1

   Walk the section with its in-charge

   Write down every task that needs a named, trained person. Expect far more columns than you first imagine.

2. 2

   Grade from evidence

   Use training papers, clearance sheets and what the in-charge has personally watched. Anything uncertain goes in as Aware until somebody sees the person do it.

3. 3

   Finish a tab before starting the next

   Tank farm this week, reaction next week. One honest tab is worth more than a guessed sheet covering the whole site.

4. 4

   Countersign every tab

   The plant head's signature turns a list into something the roster can rely on.

5. 5

   Circle the thin columns

   Any task where a shift holds only one Solo or Coach gets circled. The circled tasks are your training plan for the quarter.

• Shift in-charge: suggests an upgrade after watching someone work, noting the date beside his initials.
• Plant head or trainer: countersigns every move to Solo or Coach. Nobody upgrades their own row.
• Plant office or HR: guards the master copy, chases refreshers and enters each joiner on day one with every cell at None.
• Each week: every in-charge reads the cover counts for his shift before the roster is pinned up.
• Each month: refreshers due in the coming four weeks are listed and given dates.
• Each quarter: the plant head and HR go through every tab, strike off leavers and test whether grades still match what people actually do.

A sheet nobody consults becomes wallpaper. Two links keep it working. The first is rostering: nobody takes a task at night unless the matrix shows Solo for it. The second is pay. When an operator's grade reflects how many tasks he holds at Solo or Coach, juniors have a reason to learn and veterans a reason to teach. The cook grade ladder for resin plants shows a grade tied to signed-off work being checked against neighbouring employers.

• Compiling it at a desk in one afternoon, from recollection.
• Granting Solo for years served instead of for watched work.
• Folding contract loaders into direct-staff rows without naming the contractor.
• Letting refreshers lapse without a mark, so stale clearances still look current.
• Keeping it only on a laptop that the night in-charge never opens.

For the stages that carry someone from Aware to Solo in a formulation plant, see the recipe-by-recipe clearance approach. Joiners land on the sheet on day one, and the first-week checklist for new plant operators covers what happens to them after that. The wider people risks for this group sit on the hub for chemical and specialty chemical makers.

If you would prefer the sheet built around your own sections and tasks, send us your section list and we will take it from there.