Six o'clock, A shift, at a drop-forging shop. The night hands stoked the furnace two hours ago, and the first billets for a knuckle job are glowing. The hammer is warmed. The trimming die is in. Then the heater rings to say his child has fever. Nobody else in the A shift reads billet colour the way he does. The in-charge has three bad choices. He can wait, he can let a helper guess the heat, or he can pull the night heater into a double. Each choice means slower blows, hotter dies and more risk of laps, cold shuts and underfill. The customer's truck for stub axles is booked for four.
Forges, press shops, header bays and roll lines all run on small gangs where each seat is a skill. Attendance rules in such plants have one job. They must put the right hands at the right machine before the metal is hot or the coil is threaded.
Count seats, not heads
A muster-roll showing fourteen present tells you little when both furnace men are on leave. List the seats that decide output on each line. On a hammer: heater, hammerman, tong holder or manipulator, trimming press hand. On a press line: setter and the feeding pair. At a cold header, it is the setter who brings a multi-station machine into rhythm. At a roll former, it is the roll setter and the decoiler hand. Beside every seat, note the names cleared for it, shift by shift. Holes appear within minutes. See how hammer floors roster their heaters.
Line: hammer two. Week beginning: ____. Shifts: A, B, C.
Seat: heater. Regular: ____. Reliever: ____. Reliever last worked this seat on: ____.
Seat: hammerman. Regular: ____. Reliever: ____. Last worked: ____.
Seat: tong holder. Regular: ____. Reliever: ____. Last worked: ____.
Seat: trimming press. Regular: ____. Reliever: ____. Last worked: ____.
Seat: die setter (shared across lines). Regular: ____. Reliever: ____.
Leave booked this week: who, which seat, who covers.
Signed by shift in-charge: ____.Absence calls that leave time to act
Keep the rule plain. A hand who cannot make it rings or messages the in-charge ahead of a set cut-off, well before the furnace reaches heat. Print the number on the gate pass. Accept a WhatsApp voice note. Treat a late call as something to talk about, not an automatic fine. Plants that dock pay for every late message soon find latecomers simply stop calling.
Watch the calendar too. Absence spikes after Sankranti, Ugadi, Pongal, Onam or Diwali, when migrant hands travel home. Ask for return dates before the festival and plan relievers against them.
Relievers must work the seat
A reliever who last stood at the furnace mouth in March exists only on the sheet. Book each reliever onto the seat on a planned day, say one shift a week, on a forgiving job like a simple flange or blank. The regular stays close, coaching. The gang gets used to the new rhythm, and the regular gets a lighter day away from the worst heat.
The half-page handover
Furnaces, presses and roll lines seldom go cold, so information leaks at every changeover of people. The outgoing setter knows a fine crack has opened along the top die's flash land. The incoming one finds out at the fortieth reject. A brief overlap beside the hammer plus a half-page note fixes most of it. Our post on shift-change leaks in press shops treats this at length.
- Dies: cracks, heat checking, wear at the flash land, graphite or lubricant changes.
- Furnace or line: temperature trips, soaking delays, descaling problems, stoppages.
- Material: bar or coil heat number, scale, surface seams, oversize stock.
- Pending: setups, shut-height changes, first-off approvals waiting.
- Quality: lots on hold, samples at the lab, inspector remarks.
- People: absentees, who stood in at which seat, any injury or close call.
Overtime when call-offs jump
Car, tractor and two-wheeler buyers revise monthly schedules mid-month. The reflex is to ask the strongest gang to stay back. Repeat that for three months and the strongest gang quits. Put a ceiling on back-to-back long shifts. Share overtime across everyone cleared for a seat. Keep a simple running tally of overtime hours by name, visible to the crews. The page on call-off swings at knuckle and crankshaft forges looks at how call-off swings hit the gangs, and our shift-rule drafting service helps put such rules on paper.
Start with one line
Fill the seat cover sheet for a single hammer or press line this week. Mark every seat with no reliever, and every reliever who has not worked the seat since last quarter. That marked sheet is your training list for the next three months. For how gangs, die care and shift rhythm connect across hammer shops, header bays, drawing presses and roll lines, open the hub for forge and press shops. If you would like the roster reviewed by someone outside the plant, send the sheet through our plant enquiry page.
