An instrumentation maker builds gauges, transmitters, flow meters and analysers that plants rely on to measure process values. The people problem is calibration trust, clean assembly and engineers who support customers on site.
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Share your requirementsAn industrial instrumentation manufacturer makes pressure gauges, temperature sensors, level and flow meters, transmitters, analysers and small controllers. Assembly is careful, because a wrong fit or contaminated part changes readings. Each instrument is calibrated against a reference and a certificate is issued. The calibration lab is therefore the heart of the business, and its records are checked by customers. Engineers support installation, loop checks and field calibration at plants, often under tight time. Product knowledge sits with a small design and applications team. Technicians who calibrate accurately and cleanly are rare and easily offered more elsewhere. See also 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 industrial instrumentation manufacturers. 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.
Customers believe the certificate because of certain technicians, who become both overloaded and a risk if they leave.
Entries, signatures and reference traceability depend on discipline, and shortcuts appear in busy weeks.
Small errors with seals, connectors and wiring show up as drift weeks later.
They answer quotes, support sites and resolve field complaints, with no clear priority rules.
A plant stoppage calls an engineer at once, and travel and rest are not recorded.
Drift and returns are argued between design, assembly and stores without a shared review.
After a few years of calibration or assembly there is no visible next grade, so the better ones look elsewhere.
Incoming checks depend on who happens to be free, and defective parts slip through.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; HR Operations and Governance; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
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.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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.
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.
The pieces a industrial instrumentation manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Procedures, reference list and record sheet per instrument family, with the senior technician as author and reviewer.
Procedures, reference list and record sheet per instrument family, with the senior technician as author and reviewer. See HR documentation.
A planned route with supervised calibrations and a sign-off, set out in learning and development.
A planned route with supervised calibrations and a sign-off, set out in learning and development.
A monthly meeting of design, assembly, lab and stores that traces each return to its stage.
A monthly meeting of design, assembly, lab and stores that traces each return to its stage.
Which enquiries and support calls come first, who decides and how workload is shared.
Which enquiries and support calls come first, who decides and how workload is shared.
Days away, call-outs and compensatory time for engineers via the attendance and leave process.
Days away, call-outs and compensatory time for engineers via the attendance and leave process.
Grades from assembly hand to calibrator to lab lead, with pay steps agreed through compensation benchmarking.
Grades from assembly hand to calibrator to lab lead, with pay steps agreed through compensation benchmarking.
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 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.
Clear lab procedures and record sheets that stand up to customer audits.
A route for calibrators, assemblers and applications engineers.
Grades and pay for scarce calibration and assembly skills.
Field call-outs, travel and rest records.
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 often struggles 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 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
Every growing company reaches a point where the founder approving everything stops being speed and starts being the bottleneck. Twelve signs it has happened, and what to fix first.
9 min readRead article
What really keeps mobile app and web developers in a small firm: stay conversations, growth paths, fair release rules and a risk sheet an owner can use this month.
6 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Write the method, train a second person on each family and record sign-off. Give the senior calibrator a visible role as teacher.
Make the record sheet simple, check it at the end of each day and review a sample weekly. Shortcuts grow where records are heavy.
Define allowances, compensatory time and travel rules in writing. Ask a qualified professional how they interact with employment terms.
Hold a joint monthly review of returns and trace each to its stage. Keep the focus on the process.
Show them the next grade, pay for calibration accuracy and give them a part in method writing.
We would ask which calibrations only one person can do, how returns are reviewed and how field calls are recorded. A good first piece of work is a technician ladder and a calibration method set. Scope is agreed in writing after we talk.
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