Give the supervisor what he needs

Give the supervisor what he needs

Or what she needs, to be productive. But what the supervisor needs may not be what your system stresses, what it spews out. Here are points to consider.

My friend Ralph who knows his way around a production floor is disdainful of consultants who help management to adopt the latest new buzz words, those they picked up at the seminar at Greenbrier or Palm Springs or even Davos. To help the supervisor, provide useful information to allow the supervisor to manage; generally of two categories, "what am I do to?", and "how did I do against the plan?"

Of course, anyone on the organization chart needs useful information in order to perform their job well, from the CEO on down, although the information will be summarized at a different level for the supervisor and the CEO.

A. What am I do to?

1. What are my objectives, including definition and timetable and quantity? What tasks, when are they due, and how many?

2. What are the limits of my responsibility? What authority do I have to correct problems?

3. Who else is going to provide what? The classic supervisor's problem is that materials are not available, or received, or inspected, or to spec. Management must hold each person responsible for their part of the situation. And the system has to call for logical action; if the policy is to start a process although components are not ready then the production supervisor will be penalized (through rework, or retrofit) because of the failures of those whose duty is to provide accepted materials.

4. What is the specification? No uncertainty, please especially for something new. In any transition, assure that the new entity is developed, through pilot runs, debugged with correct specs and expectations, before asking the next function to take over.

5. What is the priority of the different tasks on my plate?

Now, since a person can give only one item at a time the highest priority, someone will eventually make the priority decision. If management does not do so, the person with the wrench or keyboard in their hand will. And if management has not made the assignment, it can hardly blame the one who takes the initiative and chooses. And if it does blame the chooser, management earns the scorn of those who understand the results of it's failure.

6. What is the unit by which the supervisor is measured?

Be careful here. For a supervisor, the unit will usually be pieces, not dollars. A supervisor usually doesn't have any say in the cost of component parts, so isn't responsible for material purchase price variance. Usage variance, yes but not purchase price. The same is true of labor cost, be sure to hold the supervisor responsible for labor hours used but not the price of labor. And overhead cost is usually allocated and beyond the control of supervision. An actual cost report, off the financials, may be useless to measure a supervisor. Pieces produced, pieces scrapped, labor hours spent and earned, will usually be key factors for a supervisor.

7. What quality level is required?

All employees have to meet accepted quality levels, and a supervisor has to confirm that of his subordinates as well. In my opinion the demand for the defined quality level is non-negotiable. Having said that, management must select and define that quality level. Some quality standards are more suited for pharmaceuticals and some for thumbtacks; make sure you choose correctly.

8. Which pieces are produced?

Does the supervisor have the ability to select the output of his group, to start the product of his choice down the line? Or does a material department buy components and issue the parts for production?

The answer to that will determine a supervisor's responsibility for which pieces are produced. I had to decline to accept the blame for sales backlogs, from a very astute boss. "Hey Dick, I don't set the schedule nor order the parts. I only assemble the products I have been issued material for." But with that answer, I had to be sure that I ran the batch scheduled on the date, with good quality, high yields and productivity.

9. Objectivity

I am an engineer, and I crave objectivity, numbers, black and white. But there are shades of gray in the world I have noticed; others point them out to me. But try to quantify as much as possible, try to provide specific information so that the objective will be clear, and mid course corrections will be likely to have the desired effect.

Relate daily and long term goals so that a supervisor's day by day record of achievement will feed the longer term record, with similar terms and expectations.

B. How did I do against the plan?

Results count, as my boss Dick stressed. So be sure to feed back results to the people who made them happen, or didn't. When? Next day, early morning, so the supervisor can correct problems right now. In a few pages, not reams of numbers.

Tailor the results by supervisor. There are plenty of measures possible in this computer age, so tell production about units and man hours and scrap rates; tell materials about backlogs and inventory turns and purchase price variance; tell credit about day's sales outstanding and overdue accounts; tell anyone of planned and actual output.

Anticipate that an employee's record may not match the organization's results. Sometimes a supervisor does a fine job coping with unexpected difficulty, just to break even or limit losses. Sometimes a supervisor may do well although the rest of the organization does not.

In such a case, continue the feedback, and adapt the goals and objectives to match the particular situation.

Thanks for your attention; I'm happy to add to your perspective of industrial engineering and productivity.