Building a skill matrix for any shop floor, step by step

Most plants already have a skill matrix somewhere. It might be a coloured chart from a customer audit, laminated and pinned beside the time office. Ask who on the night shift can change a mould on the 250-tonne press, and the chart rarely answers. A prettier chart will not help. A sounder method will.

The method below works the same way in very different trades. The stations change. A CNC shop lists turning centres, VMCs and the CMM. A sewing hall lists overlock, flatlock, bartack and buttonhole machines. A tablet plant lists granulator, compression, coating pan and blister line. The steps stay the same.

A station is a machine or work area plus the operation done there. Operator is a job title and tells you nothing. Overlock on side seams is a station. Core shooter on the iron foundry's cylinder block core is a station. Reactor three charging and sampling is a station. Walk the floor with the shift in-charge and write each one down, shift by shift.

• Foundry. Core shooter, shell moulding machine, induction furnace tapping, ladle handling, fettling grinder.
• Garments. Overlock, flatlock, bartack, kansai, feed-off-the-arm, pressing table, final checking.
• Tablets and capsules. Rapid mixer granulator, fluid bed dryer, compression press, coating pan, blister packer.
• Print and converting. Guillotine, folder-gluer, perfect binder, die-cutter, lamination.
• Electronics assembly. Pick-and-place, reflow oven, wave soldering, optical inspection, conformal coating.
• Chemicals. Reactor charging, nutsche filter, centrifuge, drum filling, effluent plant.

Rows hold names, employee or gate pass number, shift and date of joining. Include relief operators, trainees and people supplied by a contractor, marked as such. Leaving out contract hands is the usual reason a matrix looks healthier than the floor really is.

Level 0: not trained. Must not operate.
Level 1: trained, works only with a named senior beside them.
Level 2: runs the station alone on a known job and stops it when something looks wrong.
Level 3: sets up, changes over and passes the first piece or first batch.
Level 4: diagnoses faults and trains others to level 2.
Each cell shows the level, the date assessed and the assessor's initials.
Stations with a safety or quality hold point carry a re-check date as well.

Keep the levels the same across the plant so a level 3 means one thing in moulding and in packing. The test for each level is station-specific. For a press brake, level 3 might mean selecting the punch and die and bending a first-off within drawing tolerance. For a blister machine, it might mean format change and a passed leak test.

1. 1

   Book a short slot per person per station

   Fifteen to thirty minutes during a normal run, not during a rush.

2. 2

   Two assessors

   The shift in-charge plus someone from quality or maintenance. One person alone tends to mark friends up.

3. 3

   Watch the task, ask two questions

   What do you check first? When would you stop the machine? The answers show level 2 versus level 3 quickly.

4. 4

   Record on the day

   Write the level, date and initials in the cell. Do not fill cells later from memory.

5. 5

   Drop a level when a skill is not used

   If someone has not run a station for a set period, mark it for a re-check before they are rostered there.

Decide how many people at level 2 or above each station needs on each shift, and how many at level 3. A busy injection moulding cell might need two people able to change a mould on every shift. A rarely used wire EDM might accept one, with a named back-up on call. Write the minimum in its own column. The gap is the minimum minus the people who meet it.

• Pick the reddest gaps first. Zero cover on a shift comes top. Next come stations held by one person near retirement or known to be job hunting.
• Name the trainee and the trainer. A plan with no names is a wish.
• Give a target date and an assessment date. Use the same two-assessor check from step four.
• Protect training time in the roster. Training that happens only when the line is idle does not happen.

A matrix dies when nothing depends on it. Two links keep it alive. First, the roster planner should not let a level 0 or level 1 person be rostered alone on a station. Second, pay grades should follow levels across stations, so learning a second machine earns something. The case for this is set out in how should operators be graded. The story of the only operator authorised on that machine shows what an unread matrix costs.

Each trade adds its own wrinkle. Lathe and milling shops on our machining page worry most about setters and CAM programmers. Corrugators and carton lines, described for packaging makers, care about changeover crews. Tablet and capsule plants, on our pharma manufacturing page, tie levels to training files that auditors leaf through. Injection moulding units often need two mould-change capable people per shift.

Choose one section with frequent stoppages and build its matrix this month, all shifts included. Use the result to decide whether the rest of the plant follows. Our competency and talent work and the broader plant people practice both begin from an honest matrix. To scope one for your site, send us the outline.