Cylinders, valves, air preparation units, grippers and fittings are machined, assembled and pressure tested for factories that cannot afford downtime. This page covers assembly staff, testers, application engineers and dealer support.
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Share your requirementsA pneumatic equipment maker produces many small parts that must fit and seal exactly. Machinists turn and bore bodies and rods, assemblers fit seals, pistons and springs on benches, and testers check each unit for leaks and response under pressure. Orders come as mixed batches of standard and special sizes, and customers are machine builders, packaging lines and assembly plants that call quickly when a cylinder fails. Application engineers advise on selection, and distributors carry stock. A missed seal, a wrong lubricant or a loose test record can bring a complaint months later. Related reading: 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 pneumatic equipment 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.
The touch for seating a seal without a nick is passed by watching, and new assemblers take long to match experienced ones.
Pressure and leak results are noted by hand, and when a customer complains, the batch cannot be traced to a tester.
Non-standard sizes break the rhythm, and assemblers rushed on specials make errors on routine items.
A few engineers answer calls on selection and failure at all hours, with no cover plan.
Counter staff pick the wrong part because the catalogue is long and training is thin.
Machining defects reach the bench late, and the two teams blame each other.
Chips, oil residue and dust left on parts show up as sticky valves, and few workers know the link.
A tester who knows what a good response looks like is scarce, and exits leave the end of the line weak.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Performance Management; HR Analytics and Management Reporting. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
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.
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.
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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a pneumatic equipment manufacturers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Stages from kitting to simple cylinders to complex valves, each signed after a supervised batch.
Stages from kitting to simple cylinders to complex valves, each signed after a supervised batch. See the learning and development process.
Each unit or batch carries the tester's name, date, pressure and result.
Each unit or batch carries the tester's name, date, pressure and result. See HR documentation.
A plan that gives special items to chosen, trained assemblers and keeps routine work steady.
A plan that gives special items to chosen, trained assemblers and keeps routine work steady.
A weekly call rota, shared notes on common failures and a backup, so no engineer is on call alone.
A weekly call rota, shared notes on common failures and a backup, so no engineer is on call alone. See the attendance and leave process.
A short course, a selection chart and an annual refresh for counter staff at main distributors.
A short course, a selection chart and an annual refresh for counter staff at main distributors.
A weekly meeting where benches report parts that did not fit, so errors are fixed at the source.
A weekly meeting where benches report parts that did not fit, so errors are fixed at the source. See performance management.
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.
A bench ladder so assembly skill is taught step by step and not by chance.
Clear job descriptions and records for testers and inspectors.
Fair measures for assemblers, testers and application engineers.
A look at pay for bench and test roles against nearby employers, to see where people may leave.
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
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 article
Six numbers, one page, same format each month. What they are, how to define them so they mean the same thing twice, and what each one tells you.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Use a ladder of simple to complex products, pair each new hand with a senior and sign off each stage with a short practical check.
Record the tester's and assembler's name on each batch, as a basis for coaching and not punishment.
Share the call load by rota, keep a notes library and give engineers time off after heavy weeks.
If distributor mistakes reach your brand, yes. A short course and a selection chart help. Contract terms should be confirmed with a qualified professional.
Units per shift, first-pass test result and rework, read together and not alone.
We would ask how assemblers are trained, how tests are recorded and who handles customer calls. A good first job is a bench ladder and test record format. After a first talk, scope and fee are put in writing.
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