Week one decides more than supervisors admit. A newcomer who spends Monday hunting for gloves, Tuesday watching three different people, and Wednesday packing cartons alone has learned that nobody is in charge of them. That impression rarely fades. A single printed sheet, ticked daily by the supervisor, fixes most of it.
It fits a cannula-line packer or a bone-screw deburring helper. It equally fits a forceps polishing trainee, or a loom-wiring hand on suction units. Swap the station-specific lines to match your floor. For the full thirty-day plan that follows this week, read onboarding a new floor joiner over the first month.
The checklist
Name: ______ Station: ______ Buddy: ______ Supervisor: ______ Start date: ______.
MONDAY. Joining papers complete and copied to HR.
MONDAY. Gate pass, locker and canteen card issued.
MONDAY. PPE issued and logged: gloves, mask, cap, overshoes, eye guard or ESD strap as the station needs.
MONDAY. Floor walk: quarantine cage, reject bin, line-clearance board, first-aid box, fire exits, washrooms.
MONDAY. Buddy introduced by name; supervisor explains who to ask for what.
TUESDAY. Gown-up and de-gown sequence practised three times, watched by buddy.
TUESDAY. Station hazards shown: grinding-wheel guard, press two-hand control, band-sealer hot jaw, soldering-iron stand, ultrasonic bath lid.
TUESDAY. Full shift watching the buddy at one operation.
WEDNESDAY. Lot traveller explained line by line using an old completed one.
WEDNESDAY. Label tally shown, including handing back unused lot and carton labels to stores.
WEDNESDAY. Newcomer performs the operation on scrap or practice parts; buddy checks each piece.
THURSDAY. Newcomer fills a practice traveller while working; buddy reads every entry.
THURSDAY. Common rejects for this station shown on real examples from the reject bin.
THURSDAY. Halt-and-fetch triggers: three station-specific situations jotted overleaf, such as a torn Tyvek seal, a cracked mould ejector pin or a hi-pot trip.
FRIDAY. First witnessed live pieces, buddy checking every one.
FRIDAY. Line clearance at shift end done by newcomer, checked by supervisor.
FRIDAY. Handover note written by newcomer and read by next shift's buddy.
SATURDAY. Five-minute talk: what was hard, what is unclear, any concern about safety or people.
SATURDAY. Supervisor decides next week's station and whether checks stay at every piece.
SATURDAY. Skill matrix updated to T for the operation trained.
SATURDAY. Sheet signed by supervisor and newcomer, filed with HR.Who ticks it, and when
The supervisor owns the sheet. The buddy may initial lines they personally witnessed, but the supervisor reads it every evening and asks about any line still blank. Tick in the moment. A sheet filled in on Saturday from memory tells you only that someone owns a pen.
HR's role is light but fixed: papers on Monday, the filed sheet on Saturday, and a quick check that the skill matrix now shows a T. Units with several joiners a month can keep a tray of blank sheets at the supervisor's desk so nobody starts without one. Office-side paperwork running in parallel lives on our joining checklist.
Swapping lines by workshop type
- Disposables and moulding lines. Add cleanroom entry rules, the tacky mat and air-shower routine, and shift handover at the press. The onboarding notes for disposables plants go further on volume lines.
- Instrument benches. Add wheel dressing, safe hand positions at the buffing mop, and how to hand a half-finished piece to the next bench.
- Implant cells. Add coolant handling, chip disposal, and the rule that no screw leaves the bench without its lot tag.
- Equipment assembly. Add ESD wrist-strap testing, torque-driver clicks, and a ban on anyone passing final test for a monitor or pump they assembled.
Common ways the week goes wrong
- Day two, the buddy gets pulled to plug an absence, and the newcomer wanders.
- Production pressure puts the joiner on live lots by Tuesday.
- Nobody explains the reject bin, so the newcomer hides a spoiled piece instead of logging it.
- The Saturday talk is skipped because the week ran late.
Each of these is cheaper to prevent than to fix. Name a backup buddy on Monday. Hold the line on live lots until Friday. Show the reject bin as normal, not shameful. Cap Saturday's chat at five minutes, short enough to outlast a frantic dispatch.
Making it routine
After three or four joiners, read back through the filed sheets. Lines that are often late or blank point to a weak spot in your process, not in the joiners. Joiner churn and record habits across this group are discussed at HR for medical devices and equipment. Turning this sheet into a full joining system, with HR files and day-90 reviews, is what our onboarding process design covers.
