Deep drawing units press sheet blanks into cups, vessels and shells for cookware, tanks and auto parts. Cracks and wrinkles show within seconds, but finding their cause takes longer, and the operator takes the blame.
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 deep drawing unit presses flat sheet blanks into cups, shells and containers on hydraulic or mechanical presses through a series of dies. Blanks are cut or bought, coated with drawing oil, drawn, redrawn, trimmed and annealed between draws where needed, then cleaned and checked. Output goes to cookware, container, auto and appliance buyers. Quality depends on blank size, lubricant, die wear and press speed, and defects such as cracks, wrinkles and scratches show up at once. Heavy dies must be lifted and aligned by setters. Operators work in pairs, one feeding and one removing, and the work is noisy and repetitive. For the wider sector, read HR for manufacturing.
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 deep drawing units. 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.
Feeding and removing blanks beside a moving die is a daily danger, and small shortcuts around guards cause lasting harm.
Lifting, aligning and trialling a die takes judgement, and the best setters are lured away for a small pay difference.
A crack may come from the blank, the oil or die wear, yet the person at the press takes the criticism.
Dirty blanks and uneven drawing oil cause scratches and tears, and the helpers who do this get little training.
Long runs of one part lead to inattention, and a pace pushed to meet output raises both errors and injuries.
Furnace and trimming staff are left alone, and faults there come out late as batch problems.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
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.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
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 deep drawing units business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Two minutes at shift start on guards, two-hand controls and a firm rule never to reach into the die area.
Two minutes at shift start on guards, two-hand controls and a firm rule never to reach into the die area. See workplace health, safety and wellbeing.
A scale from assistant to senior setter based on die size and difficulty.
A scale from assistant to senior setter based on die size and difficulty. Use compensation benchmarking.
A short defect sheet listing blank, oil, die and operator, reviewed with the crew as part of performance management.
A short defect sheet listing blank, oil, die and operator, reviewed with the crew as part of performance management.
A one-page routine for cleaning, storing and applying, checked by the supervisor, with a short onboarding for newcomers.
A one-page routine for cleaning, storing and applying, checked by the supervisor, with a short onboarding for newcomers.
Changing task and pace through the week eases boredom, with extra care in the first hour of a new part.
Changing task and pace through the week eases boredom, with extra care in the first hour of a new part.
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.
Press safety habits and hand protection routines for crews working beside moving dies.
Pay steps for die setters set against nearby press shops, so the best stay.
A fair defect review that checks blank, oil and die before it checks the operator.
A short, clear induction for helpers on blanks, drawing oil and press safety.
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
A shift, weekly and monthly safety routine for rubber plants that names who checks platen guards, mill trip bars, autoclave doors, burst-test cages and slings, and who acts on near misses.
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 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.
Make guards non-negotiable, open every shift with a talk, and have supervisors check guards daily. Never let output pressure justify removing one.
Recognise the skill with a grade, a pay step for large and difficult dies and a say in choosing tooling. Setters leave when they feel interchangeable.
The blank, the oil or the die, not the operator. A cause sheet reviewed with the crew gives fair answers and better learning.
A short induction on press safety, blank handling and drawing oil, then a week beside an experienced hand. Check what they understood on day three.
Rotate operators across parts and roles during the week and honour rest breaks. Fatigue is a safety issue, not just a morale one.
We would watch press safety habits, ask who can set the largest dies alone, and see how defects are traced beyond the operator. A die setter grade scale with a shift-start safety talk is a good opening job. We then write the scope down for your approval.
All 6 business types in forging and metal forming · Find another business type
Tell us your industry, team size and the issue you want to address. Bring one example of where work gets delayed or ownership is unclear, and the deadline or decision you are working towards.
