Walk into most component plants and the skill chart by the section office dates from the last customer visit. It is a neat table of ticks. It cannot tell you which ticks were earned under watch, which were favours, or that one of the ticked operators now works in plating. So when a setter phones in sick, the supervisor ignores the chart and rings the one man he trusts.
A grid worth keeping answers three things on any shift. Who can run this machine family unaided today? Which columns hang on one person? Who witnessed each person prove it? The layout below suits fastener, bearing, gear, shaft, spring, valve, fitting, hydraulic and pneumatic units, the businesses gathered on our component makers' group page. Each line becomes a header, a column or a row in your spreadsheet.
The template
Top row: plant name, section, crew letter, month, compiled by, verified by.
Column A: employee code.
Column B: name, with the contractor's firm in brackets for contract hands.
Column C: date this person joined the section.
Column D: present rung on the operator grade ladder.
Columns E onwards: one per machine family or task, left to right in the order material travels.
Sample columns, bolt section: wire drawing, cold heading, trimming, thread rolling, furnace loading, sorting.
Sample columns, gear section: blank turning, hobbing, shaping, deburring, profile checking.
Sample columns, valve section: body machining, seat lapping, assembly, shell test, seat test.
Sample columns, cylinder section: tube cutting, boring, honing, seal fitting, pressure test.
Star a column wherever the person accepts or rejects parts: thread gauging, hardness testing, hydro test, leak test, final sorting.
Letter I: learning; never left alone at the machine.
Letter L: operates with a trainer within arm's reach and checks every piece against the card.
Letter U: operates unaided to standard, logs patrol readings and halts the machine on a bad one.
Letter O: completes a changeover and can bring a learner up to U.
Inside a cell write the letter, then the sign-off date, then two initials for the witness.
Starred columns: no quality countersign, no U.
Cover row: count of U and O letters per column for this crew.
Shading: amber for a single U or O in a column, red for none.
Refresher row: the date each U or O is due to be watched again, pulled forward after any drawing change.
Remarks column: lapsed letters, long leave, transfers out.Why letters beat ticks
A tick records contact with a machine. A letter records how far the plant can rely on someone at it. The I, L, U, O scheme is a familiar shop-floor convention, often drawn as a square gaining one side per step, so many supervisors will recognise it. The climb from L to U carries the most weight. After it, a person may run alone on a night crew. Keep that letter the hardest one to win.
A first pass, then the proof
- 1
Pencil in the in-charge's opinion
Spend half an hour with each section in-charge and mark letters from his knowledge. Assume the draft flatters people.
- 2
Witness every U and O before inking it
Across the next few weeks a setter watches each person run the machine and respond to a planted fault, such as an undersize blank or a nicked seal. Letters that wobble come down a step.
- 3
Gather countersigns on starred columns
Quality watches and signs for gauging, hardness and test bench work. No countersign, no U.
- 4
Include contract hands on the crew tab
Identical letters and witnessing, with the contractor's firm in brackets. A returned lot never says who employed the sorter.
- 5
Date every printout
Write the print date in the top corner. A sheet without one gets torn down and reprinted.
Roles and rhythm
- Section in-charge: writes the new letter the same afternoon a check is passed, and drops a letter after a long absence.
- Setter for that machine family: acts as witness and initials the cell.
- Quality: countersigns starred columns and pulls refresher dates forward after a drawing or process change.
- HR: merges crew tabs into a single plant file every month and ties letters to grade and pay band.
- Owner: reads amber and red columns ahead of the people review and wants a learner's name and a target week against each.
What to look for
Scan the cover row first. A red column is a machine family one sick day from a stoppage or an untested stand-in. Amber turns red with one resignation. Then read along the rows. Someone with O in several columns is your next setter, or your next resignation. Names stuck on L since the last quarter point at a training queue, typically a setter too busy to watch. Lay the night tab beside the day tab. Most plants discover their thinnest cover after ten at night.
Letters that lead somewhere
A grid stays current when its letters reach the pay slip. Tie the climb from L to U on a starred column to a rung on the five-rung grade ladder. Turn red and amber columns into training dates, as the competency approach for bearing grinders does. For a version written for any trade, see our trade-neutral matrix walkthrough.
