Planning headcount for consumer product makers: matching people to the order book

In February a cooler maker's sales head says the summer looks strong. Nobody turns that into a people number. In March the line runs short of assemblers, overtime piles up and a contractor sends whoever is available. In June the orders fall away and the unit carries more people than work. The order book had told the story months earlier. It simply was not read by anyone responsible for people.

Plants grouped on our page for household and personal goods makers live by dealer, distributor and retail chain calendars. Desert coolers need honeycomb pads and pump fitters by February. Geyser lines weld tanks hardest in autumn. Pressure cooker and tawa orders crest with the wedding muhurat dates. Exercise books, crayons and gel pens peak before term. Soft toys and board games follow the gifting season. A people plan that follows that calendar is the cheapest fix most units can make.

1. 1

   Take the order book by month

   Use confirmed orders plus the sales head's forecast for each product family. Mark what is firm and what is hope.

2. 2

   Convert to line shifts

   For each product, how many units does one line produce in a shift at normal pace? Divide the monthly volume by that to get line shifts needed.

3. 3

   Convert shifts to people by skill

   List the benches on each line: winders, assemblers, testers, packers, setters. Multiply by shifts to get people needed per skill each month.

4. 4

   Add an absence buffer

   Look at last year's absence by month. It usually rises after pay day, festivals and harvest. Add cover for that, skill by skill.

5. 5

   Compare with who you have

   Set the need against the current roll and the skill matrix. The gaps, month by month, are the hiring and training plan.

• Core: line leaders, testers, die setters, mould fitters, formulators, ruling and printing operators. Kept all year, paid for skill, never treated as casual.
• Flexible: own operators cleared on at least a second bench who can move between lines and sections as the product mix changes.
• Seasonal: hands taken on for the peak, drawn first from last season's returning list of proven hands.

The core sets quality and the seasonal layer sets volume. Most units under-plan the core because it looks expensive in the lull. Mid-rush they learn that nobody sells a spare tester or a backup die setter at a fortnight's notice.

Casual packers can be found within days. A final tester who understands hi-pot and leakage readings takes months to develop. So does a die setter who can cure a wrinkled cooker shell, or a ruling operator who can line up heads on a new notebook format. Put these roles into the plan with the longest lead time. Start the search or the training in the lull, two seasons ahead if needed. Sourcing for coil winders and testers is covered on the appliance hiring page. Painters, stitchers and holiday intake appear on the toy hiring page.

Skill or bench. Layer: core, flexible or seasonal.
People needed this month from the order book, by shift.
Absence cover added for this month.
People available now, from the roll and the skill matrix.
Gap: positive means hire or train, negative means move or release.
Source for the gap: returning list, cross-training, new hire.
Lead time for this skill.
Decision and owner, with a date.
Note on the post-peak plan for this skill.

Season's end is when units lose the people they most wanted to keep. Plan it as carefully as the start. Choose which flexible operators stay, then give them lull work: mould and die maintenance, cross-training, pilot runs of next season's designs. Say a proper goodbye to seasonal hands, write down who shone, and give them a likely callback month. A returning-hands list built this way cuts the next season's training time sharply.

Update the plan monthly against the latest orders. Compare planned and actual heads for each skill, and look at overtime by section. A month with heavy overtime and few rejects shows the plan was close. A month with heavy overtime and rising rejects shows people were stretched too far. For the term-time surge in exercise books and refills, see the stationery workforce planning page. Our blank manpower sheet saves drawing the columns yourself.

Take next quarter's order book and one product line. Turn it into shifts and people for each skill, and compare it with today's roll. Our workforce planning work builds the full plan with you across lines and seasons.