Industries
Why manufacturing employees leave and how to understand why
Operators, technicians and supervisors leave for reasons that sit in shifts, skills and supervision. How to ask, read the pattern by shift and act on it.
6 min readRead article
Electronics and Embedded Systems · PCB Assembly Units
HR for PCB Assembly Units: SMT Lines, Soldering and Rework Benches
Solder paste, pick and place heads, a reflow oven and a bench of magnifiers: a PCB assembly unit builds boards in small, changing batches, and one missing capacitor can stall a job.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsA PCB assembly unit receives bare boards and reels of parts, often from the customer, and turns them into working assemblies. A stencil prints solder paste, a pick and place machine drops the chips, and the board rides through a reflow oven. Connectors and tall parts go in by hand or through the wave. Then come AOI or eye checks, touch-up, rework and functional test. Orders are many and small, so line changeovers are constant, and a single short component can park a whole job. Bench staff work at fine detail for long hours. The line setter and the rework specialist hold skills that take years to build. See also HR for manufacturing.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in PCB assembly units, you may see
- Feeder loading rests on one or two setters
- Magnifier and bench hours wear eyes and backs
- Two benches, two standards of joint
- A late reel disturbs the whole plan
- The person who lifts a fine-pitch chip is paid like any bench hand
- Wrist straps and board handling slip when behind
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in PCB assembly units
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.
- SMT line and printer operators
- Line setters and pick and place programmers
- Through-hole and hand soldering operators
- Rework and BGA repair specialists
- Microscope visual inspectors
- AOI machine operators
- Reel and component stores staff
- Job planners and kitting coordinators
Where HR strains in PCB assembly units
Feeder loading rests on one or two setters
Loading feeders in the right slots and tuning a program for a new board takes judgement. A good setter is why a short run still ships on time.
Magnifier and bench hours wear eyes and backs
Long hours under the microscope bring tired eyes and aching necks. Absence and exits rise among the longest-serving bench operators.
Two benches, two standards of joint
Two operators on the same job lay different solder fillets. Cold joints and bridges surface only at test or at the customer.
A late reel disturbs the whole plan
When a part is short, the line idles or jumps to another job without warning. Operators lose both output and incentive.
The person who lifts a fine-pitch chip is paid like any bench hand
Repairing a tiny part without lifting a pad takes steady hands and years. The grade rarely shows it.
Wrist straps and board handling slip when behind
Under pressure, operators skip the anti-static strap or stack boards roughly. Damage turns up later with no clear cause.
HR topics for PCB assembly units
Start with the topics that matter most here: Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a PCB assembly units business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Grade operators by the joints they can make
A scale from basic placement and through-hole work up to fine-pitch rework, with sample boards at each step, tied to pay.
What this coversHide
Grade operators by the joints they can make
A scale from basic placement and through-hole work up to fine-pitch rework, with sample boards at each step, tied to pay.
What this coversHideA scale from basic placement and through-hole work up to fine-pitch rework, with sample boards at each step, tied to pay. See compensation benchmarking.
Build eye and posture breaks into the shift
Short rests, adjustable chairs and lamp and magnifier checks, with a note of who is on the finest tasks.
What this coversHide
Build eye and posture breaks into the shift
Short rests, adjustable chairs and lamp and magnifier checks, with a note of who is on the finest tasks.
What this coversHideShort rests, adjustable chairs and lamp and magnifier checks, with a note of who is on the finest tasks. See health, safety and wellbeing.
Write down the setter's changeover sequence
A checklist per board family covering stencil, feeder map and oven profile, with the setter walking a second person through it each week.
What this coversHide
Write down the setter's changeover sequence
A checklist per board family covering stencil, feeder map and oven profile, with the setter walking a second person through it each week.
What this coversHideA checklist per board family covering stencil, feeder map and oven profile, with the setter walking a second person through it each week.
Share the line plan with the benches each morning
A daily sheet that flags short components early, so operators know whether idle time or a rush is coming.
What this coversHide
Share the line plan with the benches each morning
A daily sheet that flags short components early, so operators know whether idle time or a rush is coming.
What this coversHideA daily sheet that flags short components early, so operators know whether idle time or a rush is coming. The attendance, shift and leave process supports it.
Log defects by bench and by joint type
A simple tally of opens, bridges and tombstones found at test, shared in a short huddle so coaching goes where it is needed.
What this coversHide
Log defects by bench and by joint type
A simple tally of opens, bridges and tombstones found at test, shared in a short huddle so coaching goes where it is needed.
What this coversHideA simple tally of opens, bridges and tombstones found at test, shared in a short huddle so coaching goes where it is needed.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Ask your senior setter which board families only he can load and program.
- Count how many operators can do fine-pitch rework without lifting a pad.
- Go through the last month's test defects and group them by bench.
- Check how many hours a hand-soldering operator works without a seated break.
- Ask three operators which step slows a changeover most.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the registration, record-keeping and employment obligations that apply to your board assembly business.
Confirm 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.
How GullyHR helps
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.
- Compensation benchmarking
Skill grades that reward setters and rework specialists against what nearby units pay.
- Health, safety and wellbeing
Eye strain, posture and solder-fume routines built for fine bench work.
- Learning and development process
Staged training from basic placement up to fine-pitch rework on a sample board.
- Performance management
Quality-linked measures per bench that reward boards passed first time.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in manufacturing, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
Salary bands for SMEs: building grades when you have never had any
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead article
HR Management
The safety poster nobody reads
A laminated notice, an annual drill, and an incident register with three entries in two years. What workplace health and safety looks like when it is real.
7 min readRead article
HR Management
Why employees need clear expectations before performance reviews
A review can only judge what was agreed beforehand. How to set expectations that are specific, written and revisited, so the review stops being a surprise.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Keep a written standard with sample boards at each level and a practical test before anyone moves up. Look at defects by person kindly and use them to aim coaching.
Give the role its own grade, write down the changeover routines so he is not tied to every swap, and name a successor to learn beside him.
It can work if only boards that pass test are counted and rework is visible. Otherwise output rises, and so do cold joints.
Plan breaks, check lamps and magnifiers, and rotate people between fine and coarse tasks. Ask operators what hurts first, since they know.
Share the day's plan so people know early, keep a short list of useful training or housekeeping tasks, and do not cut incentive for idle time that was not their fault.
We would count who can set a line and who can do fine-pitch rework, read the last month's defects by bench, and ask how breaks work at the soldering benches. A good opening job is a skill grade scale for operators and setters. Once we have spoken, the scope goes into writing.
More on HR for manufacturing
All 8 business types in electronics and embedded systems · Find another business type