How do we keep setters and tool room staff?

A progressive die on the big press has chipped a piercing punch again. It is two in the morning. The night supervisor rings the one die fitter who understands that tool. He drives in, swaps the punch, shims the stripper plate and checks the pilots. By eight he is back for the day shift. Three weeks later he joins a stamping plant on the bypass for a modest raise. The owner blames money. Money was only the final nudge.

Press setters, die fitters, jig borers, surface grinder hands and maintenance fitters form the smallest crew in most stamping and machining plants. They are also the slowest to replace. An operator learns to load blanks and press the palm buttons within days. A setter who brings a transfer die to a good part on the first hit, burr height inside the limit, has years of tryouts behind him. Our automotive component plants overview names this group as scarce. Below is the full answer, followed by what owners usually ask next.

Give them their own ladder, an understudy to coach, a say in tooling and a fair call-out rota. Wages matter, but they hold people only when the rest is in place. A raise rushed out after a resignation letter simply teaches every other setter how to get one.

• Call-outs with no end. The same two phones ring for every slug pull, cracked die block and misfeed, at any hour, with no rota and no time back.
• Blame for faults they did not cause. A die section cracks because coil was fed off centre or someone on nights dropped the shut height, and the fitter carries it.
• No voice in tooling. Purchase switches punch vendors, buys softer die springs or postpones a regrind, and the tool room learns of it when an edge chips.
• A pay slip that reads like an operator's. Ten years of spotting, fitting and tryout skill hide behind the same grade code as a senior press hand.
• A dead end. Nothing leads from setter to tool room in-charge or to a tooling engineer's desk, so ambition walks out of the gate.
• A rival with a fresh press line. A neighbouring supplier that has won a new platform wants ready setters and will pay slightly more to skip a year of training.

1. 1

   Build a separate ladder

   Four rungs, from assistant setter to master setter or die maker. Define each by the presses, dies and tryouts a person may handle alone, and publish the band for each rung.

2. 2

   Give every senior a named understudy

   The understudy starts with simple blanking die changes, moves to die cleaning, pilot and spring replacement, then sits in on tryouts. Coaching earns credit in the senior's appraisal, never a penalty against his output.

3. 3

   Put call-outs on a rota

   Name who is on call each week, give time back or a call-out payment as your policy sets out, and log every call. Within a month the log shows which dies keep failing.

4. 4

   Bring the tool room into buying and launches

   Ask the senior die fitter before punches, nitrogen cylinders or die springs move to a new vendor. Invite him to the tooling kick-off whenever a fresh part is won.

5. 5

   Keep a die history card

   Each die carries a card of strokes, regrinds, cracked sections and repairs, signed by whoever did the work. It records craft and shows where tool room hours disappear.

6. 6

   Hold a stay conversation twice a year

   Ask what slows them down, which tools or gauges are missing and what they would change. Act on one thing and tell them it was their idea.

No plant's gap is right to copy. The gap should be visible, tied to rungs and checked against local rates for the same craft. A pay comparison for auto parts plants sets your grades against nearby employers, so the figure rests on evidence rather than mood.

Settle your response before any letter arrives. A quiet counter-offer for one man rarely holds, and the others always find out. If the local market has genuinely moved, lift the band for that whole rung. If it has not, say so plainly. Then remind him what else the job carries: the ladder, the understudy, the voice in tooling.

List the dies, weld fixtures and checking jigs that only a single person can set. That list is your exposure. Write a second name beside each, with a target week by which that person sets it under watch. Reducing dependence on one or two setters covers how to split the tasks.

Usually they need a parallel one. A setter brings a tool to a good part on the press. A die maker builds and repairs it at the bench, with the surface grinder, wire-cut, jig grinder and spotting press. The crafts overlap but differ, and one ladder for both shortchanges somebody.

• He stops turning up to die tryouts he used to join unasked.
• He declines extra hours he once took without a word.
• He asks which new platforms the plant has quoted for, and when they start.
• His understudy suddenly gets fewer of the tricky progressive dies.
• Single weekday leaves appear, often enough to notice.

Pull last quarter's call-out log and see whose phone rang. List every die and fixture with only one competent setter. Draft the ladder and show it to the setters before anyone else sees it. The scarce setters pattern explains why this crew needs its own plan. When you want outside help, describe the problem on our requirements page.