Why shops need to invest in production supervisors

The best front-line supervisors help make a metal fabrication shop successful. The worst do just the opposite, so why wouldn’t a metal manufacturing company train them? Getty Images

Ted Williams was perhaps the best pure hitter in baseball history. He hit for a .344 career average and slugged an amazing 521 career home runs despite missing five years for military service. But his great talent as a player did not translate to his managerial career with the Texas Rangers, with a mere 54 wins in his fourth and final season managing.

Sports has hundreds of examples of great players not becoming good coaches, and we often see the same challenge in our plants with production supervisors. We have a great machine operator who really gets it. His production and quality outshine his peers’. He can handle the toughest jobs and figure out how to get the most out of work centers. He also gets along with most of his peers and has a confident way of communicating with them all. So, how do we screw up this great performer? We promote him to supervisor with minimal training or guidance.

Evaluate the Supervision Team

Production supervisors provide direct leadership to the majority of a fabricator’s employees. Think about that. How good are their communication skills, and are they in line with the company values? Good companies spend a lot of time and effort in developing their culture with planning, training, discussions, and meetings. Production supervisors carry much of the weight in delivering that message, not necessarily in formal meetings with the hourly team, but in every action and interaction that happens each day.

At least day-shift supervisors have some contact with senior managers and may even be included in meetings occasionally. On second and midnight shifts, the supervisors lead with little direct guidance or support from the plant manager or other mostly day-shift employees in scheduling, purchasing, engineering, and probably maintenance. The second- and midnight-shift supervisors’ mission is to keep machines running as best as possible and keep an eye on their production team. Not much more is expected, and if things are going well, these supervisors may go a long time between meaningful visits and conversations.

The few supervisors who lead so much of the company workforce need the right skills to manage a complex and often challenging production team. If they came up the company ranks, they know the machinery, materials, and processes, at least the ones they worked with before being promoted. Supervisors hired from outside the company might struggle learning the basic practices of their new employer, but they also might bring valuable experience with them.

Real performance evaluations for production supervisors are a key process for fabricators, but only if they provide an honest assessment and are followed up by development plans to shore up weaknesses. The quick evaluations done for HR will not be worthwhile enough.

It is difficult to honestly assess a veteran supervisor, especially if he has been with the company for 25 years and helped build it from the ground up. We forgive their shortcomings as we focus on their strengths, especially as we find it difficult to either develop new supervisors internally or hire successfully from outside.

The veteran supervisor may be rough, underutilize computer systems, or allow shortcuts in safety. But he has been doing it for years, and the production team under him is still pretty good—so why rock the boat? Because small shortcomings grow with time, and the little things that were acceptable 10 years ago have grown into challenges today and will be real problems in another five or 10 years. The best time for development would have been his first day as a supervisor or, even better, before the promotion took place.

Write a List of Expectations

Where should you begin? Start by developing a list of supervisor expectations. You probably already have a job description, but that just lists what they do. Expectations describe how the job gets done.

Spend a day with your supervisors to develop the list, and you may be surprised how aware and open they can be. Do they respect operators, mentor the newer hires, and use systems (like ERP and quality systems) effectively? Points to consider include leadership, communication, continuous improvement, computer system knowledge, and attitude.

Assess Your Current Supervisors

Take the top five or six basic job responsibilities, make sure the how is described, and have your current supervisors do a self-assessment. Also have the plant manager do an assessment separately, and then compare them all. The needs for supervisor development should stand out clearly, and probably not be surprising at all. More hard work is ahead as you must find methods to correct longtime deficiencies.

I once worked with a veteran supervisor who at times was just brutal to his team. I wasn’t certain that we could resolve this, but a long heart-to-heart discussion started the process. We talked about his frustrations, pressures, and how the operators felt. The talk revealed the hard truth: His temper was not acceptable. I challenged him to be a positive, inspiring leader, and made it clear the alternative was not with our company. Several coaching sessions later, he was making good progress and said he was enjoying his job again. This issue had been largely ignored for years and took a concerted effort to correct over a period of months. Ultimately, though, we ended up with a good supervisor.

Another challenge came at the same time at a different plant. We had a very good, young plant manager who had recently hired a supervisor from a General Motors facility. Our plant was a union shop like his GM plant, and it was hoped that he could provide some veteran leadership.

It was a mismatch from day one. The new supervisor (I’ll call him Tom) was used to handling layers of bureaucracy and paperwork at GM and had strong systems that pointed issues out in computer reports. Our plant was moderately complex but about 5% the size, and we relied on supervisors to walk the floor, talk with operators, and keep their finger on the pulse. We were in the process of implementing scheduling with our ERP system, but still, a smaller plant called for supervisors to be active in daily production.

Tom could not learn what to look for on the floor or even maintain a simple focus on why his bottleneck machines were not running. After several visits and long floor walks, it was mutually apparent that Tom would never be a good fit, and he moved on soon after. Not every employee can be salvaged or should be.

Teach, Learn, Grow

The real goal is to have good supervisors who continue learning and getting better over time. Employees and technology evolve, and shop leaders need to evolve as well or risk being outdated. A company dedicated to continuous improvement will have basic systems in place for employee development—but realize that production supervisors will need specialized training and education to keep current.

An employee development plan can be straightforward, but it also must be well thought out. First, try looking at your most successful production supervisor from recent history. List the skills that person has, both in shop floor knowledge and systems. A good supervisor will know about quality assurance and ERP systems as well as how to get stuff done on the floor.

Supervisor development ideas also can come from the annual review process. For instance, years ago I added on my review forms a one-page career goal summary that asked employees to identify their goals and related professional development opportunities.

Help team members in the growth portion of their career to find support and direction within the company. A recent meme explains why this is so important: “What if we develop employees and they leave?” asks the controller, concerned about the costs. The CEO responds, “What if we don’t develop them and they stay?”

There are two basic approaches to employee development, independent and interactive. Independent development can be done after hours, either at home or at a school. Online learning platforms can be a great resource, as are any of the dozen core business books that support a company’s cultural development. I recommend The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt as a must-read for anyone in fabricating, especially in production.

Local employer groups and community colleges have courses that are cost-efficient and practical. Some have direct courses in supervision and leadership, which may become a steady resource for the company. Also consider courses outside of supervision responsibilities such as lean, quality, or project management. For example, the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center has dozens of great courses, many of which are now available online with a live instructor. Also, circulate pertinent articles from trade magazines like The FABRICATOR. Too often copies don’t make it to the shop floor.

Don’t forget to tap the knowledge within your own company. Knowledgeable employees—from HR, materials, systems management, even cost accounting—can be informal teachers who share their expertise. Another great resource can be a machinery technician or product expert from a material supplier; just book an extra hour when they visit. Consider employee development a core part of your company culture and you will receive tenfold dividends.

Start Building Your Next Supervisor

Everybody is really busy. There isn’t normally enough time to develop solid succession or employee contingency plans, especially when you lose a top supervisor unexpectedly. Production supervisors are key employees for every fabricator, but they often fly below the radar in succession planning. HR starts succession planning with executives and managers, but they often don’t make it to supervisors.

Remember that list of supervisor expectations you developed earlier? Keeping this wish list in mind, review the floor and office for supervisor candidates. Some companies have team leaders who serve as supervisors on off shifts or weekends. They might be responsible for safety, quality, and productivity of a smaller crew, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential to climb the ranks.

Other candidates might come from process engineering where they spend their time determining the product flow and perhaps build the bill of materials and routers used on the floor. A couple-year stint on the shop floor would benefit any employee looking for a full career with the company, especially engineers who want to learn how product is actually made.

Assign aspiring production supervisors mentors who can help guide their development. They can offer guidance that directly applies to a potential role, but they can also teach other aspects of the company that aspiring supervisors might not know. Try rotating mentors every three months to cover the primary functions of the business. Over the course of one year, all these mentors will have helped your future supervisors build a great foundation that, in truth, only a few in your current management team may have achieved. An hour each week plus an occasional lunch will certainly light the spark in promising employees. It also might prevent losing them to another company.

Years ago I spent time at a company that was just beginning a formal lean manufacturing implementation. We knew lean was valuable and necessary, but the plant managers didn’t have enough time to learn and implement the process.

We looked through the possible candidates, and one employee popped to the top of the list. He was an adhesive chemist with a sharp mind and a good personality, and he was eager to take advantage of training opportunities. After six weeks, Jesse was leading shop floor kaizens at two plants. He developed our lean scorecard and was a driving force behind our lean success. Years later his career blossomed, and now he holds a leadership role at a significant company.

Invest Now

The perennial struggle continues as everyone tries to find, motivate, and keep production team members. Don’t forget to take a good look at your supervisors, the people who have the greatest impact on everyone. Happy employees help recruit their friends—and if they’re conscientious, they provide a good screening service. If they know their friends are unreliable, they probably won’t recommend them.

Good supervisors are not always loved and they’re never pushovers, but their good communication and leadership skills should help shop floor productivity and morale. You wouldn’t allow a key machine to be poorly maintained, so dedicate similar resources to developing your supervisors. They will eventually help uncover tactical and strategic opportunities that will lead to ongoing growth and success. So, invest time and dollars in your supervisors. You won’t regret it.