A machine tool and automation business designs, builds and installs machines and lines for factories. This page looks at assemblers, programmers, commissioning crews and service teams who travel and learn all the time.
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Share your requirementsA machine tool and factory automation business builds lathes, machining centres, robotic cells, conveyors and control systems, or integrates them into customers' lines. Design engineers draw the machine, fabricators and machinists make parts, assemblers fit mechanical, pneumatic and electrical elements, programmers write controller software, and commissioning engineers install and tune the system at the customer's site. Service engineers answer breakdowns. Each project is partly new, deadlines are tied to the customer's plant shutdown or launch, and the work shifts between workshop and customer site. People who can combine mechanical, electrical and software skills are rare and mobile. Related reading: manufacturing HR. Projects run on a handful of key engineers, travel and site hours are long, and handovers between design, assembly and commissioning are where delay and blame collect.
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 machine tools and automation. 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.
One programmer or commissioning lead knows how a machine really works, and an exit puts delivery at risk.
Site visits fall on the willing, with uncertain per-diems, long stays and little rest on return.
Design intent is lost between design, assembly and commissioning, and problems appear at the customer's site.
Hiring someone strong in mechanics, electrical and software is hard, and juniors learn on live projects.
Programs are changed on site without a record, and the next visit cannot find the working version.
Compressed final weeks force night and weekend work, followed by quick moves to the next project.
The same engineers are pulled from workshop to breakdown, and both suffer.
Fitters who make the machine accurate have no grade or growth path.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Career and Succession Management; Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
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.
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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a machine tools and automation business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Drawings, parts lists, program versions and test results in one place, held under HR documentation and project records.
Drawings, parts lists, program versions and test results in one place, held under HR documentation and project records.
Per-diem, stay, working hours, return rest and approval, in writing.
Per-diem, stay, working hours, return rest and approval, in writing. The shift and leave rules cover rest.
A checklist from assembly to commissioning with test results signed by both.
A checklist from assembly to commissioning with test results signed by both.
Rotate juniors through assembly, programming and site work with a mentor.
Rotate juniors through assembly, programming and site work with a mentor. The learning plan holds the path.
A named owner for each program, a change log and a rule for backups after site edits.
A named owner for each program, a change log and a rule for backups after site edits.
Levels with skill checks and pay steps that recognise accuracy and speed.
Levels with skill checks and pay steps that recognise accuracy and speed. See 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.
Cross-skill paths from assembly to programming and site work.
Grades and pay steps for assemblers and engineers.
Travel rest and fair sharing of site duty.
Project records and role handovers in writing.
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 two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
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
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.
Share code ownership, keep a version log and make a second engineer sit in at commissioning.
Write per-diem, stay, hours and return rest, and spread trips across engineers. Check obligations with a qualified professional.
Use a signed checklist, test records and a short meeting where each side lists risks.
Rotate them across assembly, programming and site work with a mentor and a plan.
Separate a service pool from project engineers and set rules for pulling people across.
Create levels, test skills and link pay and responsibility to each level.
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