A silicone component maker moulds soft parts for baby, kitchen, medical and electronic use. Customers check every lot, so careful handling and patient inspection on the floor are the main people matters.
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Share your requirementsA silicone component maker moulds solid or liquid silicone rubber into teats, spatulas, seals, gaskets and device parts. Liquid silicone is metered into a heated cold-runner mould, cured, ejected and post cured in an oven for a fixed time. Parts are then trimmed, washed, inspected and packed, sometimes in a segregated room to keep out dust and fingerprints. The material attracts lint, so how hands, gloves and trays are used matters. Inspectors hunt for tears, trapped air bubbles and flash. Buyers send drawings and may ask for lot records and inspection results. A unit runs a clean room and a general area side by side, and people crossing between them need set habits. Parent guide: 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 silicone component makers. 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.
Silicone shows every speck and fingerprint, so one careless touch or a dropped tray can turn a whole lot into rejects.
Pulling trays from the oven early gives parts that look fine and then fail the customer's compression or odour test.
Hours of hunting for hairline tears and bubbles dulls attention, and two inspectors can judge the same part differently.
Gowned, repetitive work in a closed room is uncomfortable, and operators begin asking to be moved out.
Cavities are wiped and cleaned slowly, and rushed cleaning with the wrong tool scratches the polish and shows on every part.
Requests for lot and inspection records are routine, and gaps in them weaken the relationship however good the parts are.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Onboarding and Probation; Performance Management; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for manufacturing, not in general.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
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.
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 silicone component makers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A one-page rule set for gloves, trays, tools, bench surfaces and crossing between rooms, taught in a short practical briefing during onboarding.
A one-page rule set for gloves, trays, tools, bench surfaces and crossing between rooms, taught in a short practical briefing during onboarding.
The operator notes load and unload times against the set cure on a sheet at the oven door, and the supervisor initials it before trays move on.
The operator notes load and unload times against the set cure on a sheet at the oven door, and the supervisor initials it before trays move on.
Sample boards showing accepted and rejected parts hang at every inspection bench, and inspectors cross check each other monthly.
Sample boards showing accepted and rejected parts hang at every inspection bench, and inspectors cross check each other monthly. Performance management can carry the feedback.
Set a rotation roster, offer small allowances or longer breaks, and ask about morale each month.
Set a rotation roster, offer small allowances or longer breaks, and ask about morale each month. The retention work shows how to design it.
Lot sheets, operator lists and inspection logs go into one folder, updated each week.
Lot sheets, operator lists and inspection logs go into one folder, updated each week. See HR documentation.
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.
A hands-on handling induction for new liquid silicone and compression moulding operators.
Shared inspection boards and feedback loops so inspectors judge parts alike.
Rotation and recognition plans that keep clean room teams from drifting away.
Tidy lot and training records that are ready when a buyer asks to see them.
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 first-week plan for bringing in an outside specialist: what access to give, how to protect client data, and the confidentiality steps to settle on day one.
7 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
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.
Give a one-page rule set, show it done at the bench and supervise the first week closely. Repeat the briefing at intervals rather than once.
Record oven load and unload times, and have the supervisor read the log every shift. A visible timer on the oven door helps operators hold to the cure.
Hang shared boards of good and rejected parts, have inspectors check the same parts against each other, and talk through differences openly each month.
Rotate people, give proper breaks, hear their complaints and credit the work. Where possible, make the room itself more comfortable.
Lot sheets, inspection logs and the names of who worked each lot. Update them weekly so a customer visit is never a scramble.
We would watch how parts are handled on the floor, see whether oven cure times are logged and compare inspectors on one shared tray. A handling induction with a shared inspection board is a sensible opening job. After we talk, the scope is written down and agreed.
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