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1 + 1 = Weld shop staffing success

How to justify supervisor additions using simple math

The North American welding industry has never been one to step back from economic challenges over the decades. The fact that it has survived one economic downturn after another shows the resiliency of its core structure.

More than half of the products made in North America require welding (see Figure 1). If one economic sector takes a hit during a recession, other sectors often pick up the slack. As a result, welding continues to thrive regardless of the economic climate, and welders qualified in gas metal arc welding (GMAW), gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), and other processes are able to find work in any of these industries. Welding knows no industrial boundaries, and it’s found under the sea, on land, in the air, and even in space.

However, one aspect of the welding industry remains challenging for company management: determining staffing levels for tradespeople and supervisors at the front lines of industrial manufacturing systems and construction projects.

While this discussion focuses on welding, it can be applied to any trade. We have all heard variations of the age-old joke about how many people it takes to dig a hole. The real answer, of course, is one to handle the shovel, three to stand around to manage the digging, a safety person to monitor the site, six back at the office to handle the paperwork and logistics of the guy digging, and at least four levels of government bureaucracy employing at least 10 people to ensure all the permit red-tape paperwork is handled in the most inefficient and time-consuming manner possible.

And we cannot forget the politician seeking re-election by promising that, if elected, he or she will improve the hole-digging job by guaranteeing that international free-trade agreements will not delay getting a cheaper, if somewhat lower-quality, shovel into the hands of the guy digging the hole.

The Staffing Misconception

All joking aside, let’s consider the real challenge of staffing a weld shop. One common misconception is that a supervisor’s work load increases at the same rate as the number of subordinates, which would be a straight diagonal line on the chart. However, the actual supervisory work load follows a growth rate that is more like a parabolic curve (see Figure 2).

With more employees, the supervisor has more paperwork, more individual coaching, more instructions to give, more management of tools and material, and perhaps more rework to oversee. In a small welding company that grows from six to 10 employees, the inability of the supervisor to juggle the increased work load can shut down the owner’s dreams, just like it also can bog down a large corporation.

Maximizing Supervision Staffing With Simple Math

All departments or companies that provide welding services need to have some basic tools to maximize efficiencies while minimizing payroll costs.

While many people do not like crunching basic numbers, nothing beats simple math to come up with money-saving options to get through those tough economic times. The good news is that this is not rocket science. In fact, the number crunching is so simple that it can be done quickly without any brain-numbing work.

Following are some basic examples that can be done with any laptop spreadsheet or even with a cell phone calculator app.

Figure 1
The entire economy is a system of interlocking industrial cogs, and the key component for more than half of it is welding.

First is a simple spreadsheet to determine how much of a production increase is needed to justify hiring an extra supervisor for a welding team (see Figure 3). Assume the team is one small contracting company working on a multicontractor pipeline for oil and gas, or even a water distribution system for a city.

This small welding company has increased its workforce from six to 10 employees, but it is unsure if hiring another supervisor will make the team more efficient. The company currently has one supervisor.

Using the simple ratio calculation of wages shown in Figure 3, the company determines that its weekly inches of deposited welds will have to increase by 5.4 percent to justify extra supervision costs. In this case, that increase equates to 54 inches of quality weld deposits each week. Of course, the company expects that the production increase will surpass this amount, so the hiring of another supervisor is justified.

In case you need more convincing on how basic math can help move your welding business, let’s look at another calculation.

If this same company, having grown from six to 10 employees, hires another supervisor, the ratio of welders to supervisors will change from 10-to-1 to 5-to-1. How will that change the amount of personal, one-on-one quality time that each employee will have with a supervisor—and how will that extra time affect efficiency?

The following simple ratio, using work minutes in a day, shows that a welder’s quality time with a supervisor would double from 60 minutes per day to 120 minutes per day.

That is a lot of extra time per welder with a direct supervisor to help ensure the welder has all the help needed to get his job done correctly, on time, and with optimum quality.

It really is this simple to do the math.

How will the extra supervision affect overall efficiency? Every minute that a welder spends tracking down information for a work order; doing paperwork; filing work requests; figuring out what parts are needed for a work order; ensuring safety of power sources, motors, pumps, and chemical valving; and figuring out if the storeroom has all the parts that may be required for the job takes that welder’s time away from the job at hand. And any work that takes a welder away from his prime expertise is money wasted. Welders are paid to provide a technical service to the company, not to fill out paperwork and find parts.

So, unlike the joking example of one fellow digging a hole and three people watching, an extra supervisor for the example small welding company would do a lot of supportive background work unseen by the welders—all the work that ensures those welders can concentrate on burning a lot more rod and wire to earn more money for the company, and doing so with high quality.

Simple math ratios can be a powerful tool for any company. Rocket science mathematicians need not apply.

About the Author

Orest Protch

Teaches Seminars in Basic Welding and Machining Metallurgy