A control panel maker builds the cabinets that run machines and process plants, to drawings from each customer. Wiremen, a few designers and commissioning engineers decide whether the panel works the first time on site.
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Share your requirementsA control panel maker builds cabinets holding starters, drives, PLCs and wiring for machines, pumps and process plants. A job begins with a customer drawing or an in-house schematic, then moves through cutting and mounting, wiring, ferrule and label fitting, functional testing and dispatch, with commissioning on site where needed. Panels are built one at a time, so no two jobs repeat. A good wireman reads a schematic and works neatly unprompted, and a good commissioning engineer finds the fault in a live plant. Orders bunch around project deadlines, and the shop swings between idle days and late nights. The wider manufacturing hub covers what plants share.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in control panel makers. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Neat, tested wiring comes from the person, and rework appears at commissioning when the panel is already at the customer.
Orders bunch around customer dates, so overtime follows quiet spells, and good wiremen drift to steadier shops.
Newcomers copy the habits of the nearest wireman, good or bad, as there is no written standard.
A revised schematic after wiring starts means rework and arguments over who pays for the hours.
They spend long days away from home fixing faults in unfamiliar plants, and the factory under-recognises it.
When dispatch is tight, panel checks are cut short, and faults are found on site rather than in the shop.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Learning and Development; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
How many people, in which roles, by when, and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes, one for complaints, one for conduct, kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why, and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a control panel makers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A scale from helper to senior wireman with sample panels and checks at each rung, tied to pay.
A scale from helper to senior wireman with sample panels and checks at each rung, tied to pay. See pay benchmarks.
One page of rules on ferrules, ducting, cable routing, labels and tidiness that all follow and juniors learn from.
One page of rules on ferrules, ducting, cable routing, labels and tidiness that all follow and juniors learn from.
One view of order dates so overtime, extra hands and leave are fixed early.
One view of order dates so overtime, extra hands and leave are fixed early. Shift and leave planning uses it.
Travel days, allowances and rest written once so nobody argues each trip.
Travel days, allowances and rest written once so nobody argues each trip. Pay processing applies them.
A checklist signed by a checker other than the wireman, with time held for it in every project plan.
A checklist signed by a checker other than the wireman, with time held for it in every project plan.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. Work through the checks using a recent operating period. The time needed depends on the records you hold; note missing evidence and use the findings to choose a priority.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Skill grades for wiremen and commissioning engineers set against nearby panel shops.
Overtime and leave planning for project-driven peaks.
A route that turns helpers into dependable wiremen.
Right-first-time measures that do not punish honest rework reporting.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in manufacturing, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why the best operator can struggle as shift supervisor, what it costs the line, and a practical way to choose, prepare and back new supervisors in any kind of plant.
7 min readRead article
Simple variable pay structures for product and engineering teams: four options, why individual metrics backfire, a build plan and a one page outline to adapt.
6 min readRead article
A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
6 min readRead article
A practical design for an IT services appraisal cycle: when to run it, how to rate fairly across projects, and how to explain hikes so they hold.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Pay for skill, plan the peaks so late nights are not constant and give senior wiremen a part in training. They move for steady work and respect.
Pair each with a good wireman and a written standard, give small tasks first and check the work. Learning should not be left to chance.
Agree a change process with the customer, record the extra hours and tell the wiremen early. It eases tempers and gives you the cost.
Set travel and rest rules, recognise the work in grades and appraisals and give them a way to share site lessons with the shop.
No. Share the plan early, use trained part-time hands and spread work across the month where customers allow.
First we would ask your senior wireman what every helper should learn, count panels reworked after commissioning and set upcoming dispatch dates against capacity. A wireman grade scale with a wiring standard is a natural first job, and scope goes into writing for your sign-off.
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