Kiln handovers pass by word of mouth: HR for tile manufacturers

A roller kiln ignores the clock on the canteen wall. Tiles keep rolling through the preheat, firing, quench and slow-cooling zones while the crews swap over. The outgoing firing lead says a few words near the panel: zone four is running hot, a roller near the exit was swapped, watch the burners on the left wall. Then he heads for the gate.

That spoken handover heads the strains listed on the tile manufacturers page. It sounds small. In a continuous plant it is where a good night of firing turns into a bad morning of seconds.

• Curve changes. A set point nudged before dawn to correct planarity, and nobody says whether it worked.
• Burner and gas trouble. A nozzle that kept choking, a combustion air reading that looked odd, a burner isolated.
• Roller faults. Rollers changed, a jam cleared, a section where tiles were bunching.
• Upstream changes. A new spray-dried powder lot, an engobe or glaze weight adjustment, a fresh inkjet design entering the kiln.
• Pending jobs. A fitter promised for the cooling fan, a test tile set aside for the lab.

Every one of these slips out of memory before the chai trolley arrives. By the second hour of the new shift the incoming lead is acting on half the story.

Firing faults surface late. Tiles pressed and glazed on one shift may leave the kiln on the next. Pinholes, black core, crazing, edge cracks or a slight bow appear when sorters lay it under the inspection lamp. By then the lead who changed the curve has gone home, and the one on duty cannot say what was done.

The plant pays twice. First as downgraded tiles sold as seconds. Then as hours lost trying the same fix again, because the incoming crew did not know it had already been tried. Sorters take the blame for mixed shades and calibre that were really made in the kiln.

Kiln crews are small and close. The leads often trained together and trust each other's word. Writing feels like distrust, or like a chore after eight hours beside the dryer exhaust. Some leads are uneasy with forms in English. And many plants schedule the shifts back to back with no overlap, so the handover happens in the minutes when one person is tired and the other is still changing.

Owners sometimes add a logbook. It fills with times and temperatures copied from the panel, which the panel already records. The few lines that matter, the change itself and the reason, are left out.

1. 1

   Agree the five things that must be handed over

   Sit both firing leads down together and list them: curve changes, burner state, rollers, upstream changes and pending jobs. Their words go on the sheet.

2. 2

   Build in a short overlap

   Roster the incoming lead to arrive a little early, so the sheet gets read at the control panel, not at the gate. The tile attendance and shift process can hold the overlap and the rest gap.

3. 3

   Sign both names

   Outgoing lead writes, incoming lead reads and countersigns. A sheet without the second signature means the handover did not happen.

4. 4

   Use the local language

   Let crews write in Gujarati, Telugu, Hindi or whatever they speak at home, with ticks where possible. A line in the right language beats a blank form in the wrong one.

5. 5

   Read it at the shift meeting

   The production head spends a few minutes each morning on the last three sheets and asks one question about each change.

Date, shift ending, shift starting.
Outgoing firing lead and incoming firing lead.
Curve or set point changes this shift: zone, what, why, result.
Burners out of service or behaving oddly.
Rollers changed, jams cleared, sections to watch.
Upstream changes noticed: powder lot, glaze weight, design, press moisture.
Defects seen at kiln exit or reported by sorting.
Jobs pending for maintenance or the lab.
Signatures of both leads and time of handover.

Clip the sheets into a binder beside the pyrometer display for a month, then file them by date. When a lot is downgraded, the sorting record leads to a firing window and the window leads to a sheet. Over a season the sheets also reveal which crews touch the curve most often and which leads want coaching. Spotting that is the job of handover and reject tallies for tile lines.

Only a few people in any tile plant can tune a curve with confidence. If those leads also own the handover, they hold the plant's memory twice over. Partner each senior with a junior technician who fills the sheet under guidance, then fires a quiet night with the senior's mobile switched on. A staged path, such as firing-lead apprenticeship steps, gives that pairing a structure and an end point.

Give firing leads a named grade and pay step. Neighbouring plants poach kiln and glaze specialists because they are rare. Kiln and glaze wage comparisons against nearby units show whether your leads are paid for the judgement they carry.

• Read last week's kiln notes and ask whether a newer lead could fire from them alone.
• Stand at the panel during one shift change and listen to what is said.
• Pick one downgraded lot and try to name the kiln shift and any curve change behind it.
• Look at the roster for any minutes when both firing leads stand at the panel together.
• List who can tune the curve today, and who is learning.

Handover gaps, sorter judgement and night fatigue are linked across kiln plants, and the group page for construction materials sets them side by side. To work through the sheet, the overlap and the firing grade for your own line, send us the outline through requirements.