Supervisors carry too much: a fix for auto component makers

Night shift at a moulding plant. The supervisor counts heads at the turnstile and finds three absentees. He moves an operator off the paint line to cover two presses. A mould sticks, so he phones maintenance. A first-off on a door trim waits for his signature. Two packers argue about the canteen queue. At four in the morning the plant head messages asking why the MIS sheet is late. Nobody has spoken to the new joiner on press eleven all night.

That load is a recurring pattern on our people practices page for tiered suppliers. One person runs output, quality, attendance and small disputes at once, usually untrained for the people half. Owners hunting for the source of attrition in an automotive component company often find it here, in the span of one overloaded in-charge.

• Headcount at the turnstile, absentee phone calls and reshuffling operators between the press bay and the paint booth.
• Approving first-off and last-off parts against the control plan, because no inspector works nights.
• Chasing stores for child parts, polybags, trays and grease.
• Calling maintenance, then waiting beside a stuck ejector pin or a tripped spot welder.
• Segregating suspect stock into red bins after a complaint, sometimes with his own gloves.
• Filling the hourly output board, the rejection sheet and overtime slips in three formats.
• Settling quarrels, signing early-leave gate passes and hearing canteen grumbles.
• Answering the plant head's messages at odd hours.

Barely any of that is leadership. Feedback, coaching a slow trainee and spotting a drowsy operator get squeezed into leftover minutes.

Attrition bunches under specific in-charges, and exit notes mention shouting or neglect. Escapes rise on the most stretched shift, because check sheets get initialled in a hurry. Joiners quit inside a fortnight, having met their foreman twice. Then the supervisors resign too. A seasoned in-charge takes every die quirk, every mould's temper and each operator's limits with him.

• The role was never designed. It grew by addition. Every new report or approval landed on the supervisor because he was there.
• Support desks keep office hours. Quality, maintenance planning, stores and HR leave by evening. After that, the floor has one decision maker.
• No line leader layer. Between thirty operators and one supervisor, nobody else can reallocate a station or approve a break swap.
• Promotion by seniority. The best press operator got the job and was told to manage. Nobody showed him how.
• Duplicate paperwork. Production, quality and the time office each want their own sheet.

Ask each supervisor to jot his tasks every half hour for one week, across morning, evening and night rotations. Pull attrition and transfers out by supervisor for the past year. Count the formats he fills each shift. Ask what he would hand over first. Those four answers sketch the redesign.

Task: what exactly is done, in a few words.
How often: per shift, per day or per week.
Minutes taken each time: rough estimate from the log.
Keep: only the supervisor can do this well.
Line leader: a senior operator can take this with a little training.
Support desk: quality, maintenance, stores or the time office takes it.
Drop or merge: duplicate sheet or approval nobody reads.
Owner after change: named person and start date.

1. 1

   Sort the logged tasks

   Fill the sheet with the supervisor present. Expect a large share of tasks to move or vanish once listed.

2. 2

   Create line leaders

   One senior operator per line or cell takes station reallocation, break relief and first contact for small problems. Give the role a title, a grade and an allowance.

3. 3

   Give support desks night cover

   A rota of inspectors for first-off approval, a maintenance on-call list and a duty number for the time office. Supervisors stop being everyone's substitute.

4. 4

   Merge the paperwork

   One shift report that production, quality and the time office all read. Retire the rest.

5. 5

   Write the supervisor role down

   A one-page role description stating what the supervisor decides, what he escalates and what he no longer does.

6. 6

   Train the people half

   Absence calls, corrective feedback, settling quarrels and welcoming joiners. Short sessions on the floor work better than a classroom day.

7. 7

   Hold a weekly one-to-one

   Fifteen minutes with the plant head on people issues only, not output figures.

Sequence matters. Line leaders and night cover come before training, because a supervisor drowning in first-off approvals cannot practise feedback. Once the queue shrinks, coaching sessions have room to land.

Relapse comes from new demands. Any fresh report or approval must name its owner before landing on the shift. Repeat the one-week log twice a year. Our programme for developing shift managers covers the people skills supervisors were never taught. See how leadership work applies to general auto parts plants. Its counterpart for harness plants shows line leaders on assembly boards. For the promoted-operator story, read the supervisor who was the best operator.