A diagnostic equipment maker assembles analysers, glucometers and test readers on ESD benches, calibrates each unit against reference samples and services it in labs. Drift knowledge and firmware history sit with very few people.
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Share your requirementsA diagnostic equipment maker builds blood analysers, glucometers, ECG units, ultrasound parts and lab readers. Boards are populated, optics and pumps fitted, firmware flashed, and each unit is calibrated against reference samples and burn-in tested before dispatch. Many firms also sell reagent kits and send engineers to hospital labs for installation and annual service. Only a handful of technicians know how a given model drifts, and firmware reasoning often lives in two heads. When one is on leave, a field fault waits. For the wider sector, see HR for pharmaceuticals and life sciences.
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.
Which reference sample to trust, and how a model shifts after a month on the bench, is rarely written. It leaves the building with the person.
Why a threshold or filter setting exists is remembered, not recorded, so a field fault waits when that engineer is away or gone.
An engineer explaining a flagged result or a reagent setting with no script can give a casual wrong answer that reaches a patient report.
Fine-pitch soldering and reflow touch-ups vary by person, and a cold joint becomes an intermittent fault in a customer's lab weeks later.
Tender awards and lab openings cluster, so engineers travel back to back, carrying tool kits and loaner units, with little rest between sites.
Cold-chain and expiry-dated stock is moved by whoever is free, and a lapse is found only when a customer returns a kit.
Hiring is slow, and larger instrument firms approach the good ones with offers before a backup has been trained.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Career and Succession Management; Learning and Development; Organisation Design. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for pharmaceuticals and life sciences, not in general.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
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.
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 diagnostic equipment makers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
The calibration technician writes the drift pattern, the reference sample used and the checks, in plain words.
What this coversHideThe calibration technician writes the drift pattern, the reference sample used and the checks, in plain words. A second technician then calibrates one unit from the note alone. See role design and job descriptions for the roles around it.
A second person follows firmware and calibration work on a fixed rhythm, so one absence does not hold a release.
What this coversHideA second person follows firmware and calibration work on a fixed rhythm, so one absence does not hold a release. The succession planning method fits here.
A one-page card says what an engineer may explain about results and settings, and which design contact takes the rest.
What this coversHideA one-page card says what an engineer may explain about results and settings, and which design contact takes the rest. Training sits in the learning and development process.
A practical test and a graded list show who may do fine-pitch rework.
What this coversHideA practical test and a graded list show who may do fine-pitch rework. Rework and return counts per person can feed performance management.
A shared view of lab launches and engineer travel stops people living on the road.
What this coversHideA shared view of lab launches and engineer travel stops people living on the road. See attendance, shift and leave process.
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.
Named backups for the few people who carry calibration and firmware knowledge.
A clear map of who owns bench assembly, calibration, validation and field work.
Sign-offs for service engineers and a grading path for bench technicians.
A route to electronics and instrument talent in a very small pool.
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 pharmaceuticals and life sciences, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why people leave pharma and life sciences roles, and how to ask about qualification, shifts, territory and quality culture in an exit conversation.
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 calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead article
A flat structure works until the founder becomes the only route to a decision. How to tell when you have passed that point, and how to redesign without a reorganisation.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Have the technician write a note per model, pair a second person on live calibrations and recognise the skill with a grade and pay. Start well before any sign of leaving.
Rotate tasks, record design decisions as they are made and let a junior shadow each critical engineer. Reward the engineers who share what they know.
Agree a short list of what an engineer may explain and what goes back to design. Give them a named contact for questions they cannot answer on site.
Set a practical test on sample boards, track rework and field returns by person, and give the best hands a grade and the job of teaching others.
Try nearby electronics units, diploma and engineering colleges, and dealer service engineers. A written role and skills list lets you screen quickly.
We would ask who alone holds calibration and firmware knowledge, list possible backups and review recent lab calls made solo. A good opening piece of work is a written backup plan for critical engineers plus a service sign-off card. After a first conversation, we write down the scope for you to approve.
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