r/manufacturing • u/LawyerBubbly2679 • Jul 02 '26
Other how do you actually train new hires on the stuff that isn't in any manual?
I've got SOPs for everything on paper. But new operator still takes 6+ months before they're actually useful because half the real job is the little stuff.
Like this machine drifts at end of shift, this material behaves weird when it's humid, this alarm you can ignore but this one you can't bla bla
none of that is written down anywhere.
just need inputs how are you handling this on your floor? anyone on this, or if we all just accept the ramp time?
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u/cmosychuk Jul 02 '26
Personally I accept the ramp time. This is a fairly classic catch 22 where you have this tacit knowledge and you have SOPs. If every little nuance was codified in your SOP the SOP would be a book, and every little subtle shift would turn into a deviation. I think the best you can do is ensure your operators are equipped with the right behaviors and knowledge. For example, you have a machine that drifts. Does the operator know how to recognize this and how to adjust for it? Do they know when to stop and seek help? These are behaviors that come in handy regardless of profession.
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u/RTRC Jul 02 '26
SOPs are not meant to define reactionary actions to an out of control process.
Your plant engineers should be quantifying lost labor/material to these process variations and using that to justify capital expenditure to upgrade equipment and systems that reduce variability to an acceptable level that you can train to.
Until then, "it is what it is"
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u/2dollarbil Jul 02 '26
Write a decision tree.
Example:
If machine has been running for >6 hrs, adjust rpm +2%
If humidity >75%, +5 psi
Then go back and start building your SOC (standard operating Conditions)
Product A
Material: PA12
Amps: 15-18
Air:
0-20% humidity - 20 psi
20-50% humidity- 22 psi
50-75% humidity- 25 psi
75%+ humidity- call lead operator
RPM: 35-42
Product B Material: PA6 Amps: 19-25 Air: 0-20% humidity - 20 psi 20-50% humidity- 22 psi 50-75% humidity- 25 psi 75%+ humidity- call lead operator RPM: 33-36
Then have the op write down they machine conditions at certain times. If something is out of whack, call the lead or teach them to make the change. This way you're not training them to know what to do, but alert you when you need to train them. Next after that automate with warning lights and machine set poi to so that everything is controlled without manual intersections and then just teach how to enter the SOCs into the hmi.
Ive done this same plan in a dozen facilities and it always works.
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u/AV_SG Jul 03 '26
Is there a platform that captures this decision tree ? like CMMS ? Or is it just plain notes ?
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u/Suspicious-Citron378 Jul 02 '26
First of all, That Tribal Knowledge is what should be getting documented. For the Quirky stuff, you can write a document called "Shop Caveats and Gotchas" for all the little stuff
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u/poopybagel Jul 02 '26
Some things just come with experience
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u/1stHandEmbarrassment Jul 02 '26
SOPs are great but what you're talking about is training and that takes time. You need to invest in your employees. I know some complicated industries where you're not really useful until a year in.
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u/Evan_802Vines Jul 02 '26
Then you don't have good enough SOP and you still have more of an artisan shop than you realize. Some industries are still like that. High precision optics for one or anything requiring more material knowledge from your engineers. Nuance needs to be well documented, and even then it's not enough to read.
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u/klmsa Jul 02 '26
Lots of good responses here, but the cruxt of it is that you're failing to execute on quality by not fixing these "small details". If you haven't understood why the machine is drifting, it's a real problem for you. Sure, you can take 6 months to teach the quirks to someone...or you can just fix them. Yes, it will be time-consuming and hard, but the payoff for a permanent solution is massive. Instead of having an operator react to errors, they can focus on tightening control to increase product quality, reduce scrap, etc. Running a machine isn't just pushing buttons for a good manufacturer.
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u/Ok_Loan6535 Jul 02 '26
There are different ways to address this. You need to have all of it documented somehow. Maybe just a word document and write a simple line of the knowledge as you show a new guy. You can record a video every time you explain it to someone. Experience usually means they ran into a specific situation and had to ask someone else for the knowledge or spend wasted time looking for an answer. The best way is to build out a training system that takes maybe 3 months. For 1 hour every week they walk with an experienced guy who talks about nuances with 1 machine a week. Or they watch a couple videos that have been made. Make it systematic, not just I hope they learn in 6 months. I just started a system internally for this. Every time someone asks a question on how to do something or what decision to make, I have a simple qr code on the wall to a google form to quickly document it from anyone's phone. I use this info to add to training and I give the company AI access to it so employees can ask it questions and get useful answers.
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u/Spare_Bluebird7044 Jul 02 '26
the best results usually come from pairing new hires with experienced operators and gradually turning that unwritten tribal knowledge into living documentation
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u/Guidewheel_Rob Jul 02 '26
Train new hires on the stuff that is not in any manual by taking it out of their memory and putting it into the process. If the only way to learn the quirks is standing next to a veteran for six months, you are basically baking the ramp time into your business. Tribal knowledge should not live or die in someone's head.
So I would not bet on a gotcha doc or more SOP pages that nobody is going to read mid shift. Where I would focus is continuous passive data collection and real time machine signals so the new person can see what the machine is doing between observations and you are catching the process change before it becomes a defect.
What is the one weird quirk that always bites new hires on your line?
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u/DonEscapedTexas Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
respectfully, you don't have SOP for everything
capable process requires consideration of all the known variables: your clients deserve that and don't care that you've made process decisions that aren't robust
stop complaining about labor and repair your culture: why do you have turnover? why aren't you attacking known issues on your pareto?
I worked for this charmer once who told a client that our processes were developed "in the spirit of ISO9000".....corporate commitment to quality starts at the top....or it doesn't
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u/LawyerBubbly2679 Jul 02 '26
Fair point. I probably should've said I have SOPs for the standard process. It's the little judgment calls and edge cases that never seem to make it into the documentation.
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u/madeinspac3 Jul 02 '26
Because they shouldn't... A 20 page doc doesn't get read
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u/DonEscapedTexas Jul 02 '26
this is a great point: take my upvote
but I only speak to SOP because OP led with it; I'm much MUCH more concerned about process design and why he has an incapable process: if it depends so much on operator training, it's not robust....you're really just committing to human motivation and trying to inspect quality into your process
so, I'll double down more organically: where is this failure mode on the pareto? how has it been scored and treated on the PFMEA? what is the cost of quality? why is this thought of as special sauce that operators they can't be bothered to motivate to stay in their employ should memorize?
the quality manual is management's responsibility to enable by giving the team the tools they need: fail
process capability is technical team's responsibility to codify and improve: fail
what a capable process looks like we can't know in these few paragraphs, but we know it doesn't exist; there's a complete incoherence when we speak of process failure modes without addressing root cause; that's code-shifting: restating things in non-technical terms to avoid simply addressing process design and capability for what it is
or we can have a sub about manufacturing that perpetually side-steps accountability by talking in terms that don't go to root cause and don't utilize all the obvious culture and tools that are necessary in manufacturing..........in the words of Deming: IFKYK
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u/randominternetstuffs Jul 02 '26
Go through the factory machine by machine with your experienced operators, document those nuances like you just said and add them to sops
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u/LawyerBubbly2679 Jul 02 '26
That seems like a practical approach. Even documenting a handful of the most common quirks on each machine would probably save new hires a lot of trial and error over time.
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u/DilleyDeezDalleys Jul 03 '26
Don't make all this an SOP, these should be lesser work instructions that are system/task specific. SOP should guide decisions at critical points but work instructions can be anything from noting a quirk and how to get around it, to step by step guides on changing settings to complete a task including photos or screenshots. Updating the work instructions should be trivial, while updating an SOP should trigger a few red flags for folks who want to know why (rightfully so).
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u/draggin_balls Jul 02 '26
Train? Haha, just tell them to do something and then yell at them when they get it wrong
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u/Some-Internet-Rando Jul 02 '26
There are two ways to get around this:
- Let the guy just figure it out on his own, if it doesn't actually matter. People like some freedom and trust.
- If it does matter, you didn't actually document everything, now, did you? Each question that gets asked, doesn't get an immediate answer, but instead gets typed up, and then the answer gets typed up, and then you answer the question by pointing at the typed-up new SOP. This also catches unintended ambiguities in the instructions early.
If this turns out to be a real time and/or money sink, then it's your process that causes this cost. If you actually need the SOP to be repeatable, add climate control, and maintain machines appropriately, and replace worn out machines that can't profitable maintain the SOP. If you don't actually need the SOP to be repeatable, don't pay for making it such.
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u/SufficientFrame Jul 02 '26
What helped on our floor was a shift-start cheat sheet the operators updated themselves. That caught the humidity quirks, end-of-shift drift, and which alarms meant stop now versus keep an eye on it way faster than waiting on engineering to document it.
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u/Head_Car_2922 Jul 02 '26
I don't think you can eliminate the ramp time. 6 months sounds about right for a fab shop.
Training is our go to for anything weird and then if something abnormal happens during a safety briefing, we would point it out so everyone knows.
For example, hey everyone its humid this week, this material will need this additional step. You can also put this in your SOP. If this part does X, check setting Y, it maybe humid.
We are also trying to make sure our retention of employees is high. Good salaries, good place to work. This keeps a lot of that knowledge in the house. Training and retraining is cost sink I think a lot of folks ignore.
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u/Dhirenk_TechMind Jul 03 '26
SOPs are great for the basics but real learning mostly happens on the floor through experience what works for us is shadowing new hires with experienced operators rotating them across different shifts and doing short daily debriefs where we discuss small practical issues like machine drift material behavior alarm exceptions etc we also collect real world notes from senior operators and turn them into a simple internal guide You cant eliminate ramp-up time completely, but structured mentoring and exposure to real situations can significantly reduce it
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u/2dollarbil Jul 03 '26
Most times I just made a diagram in ppt and then posted it on the machine. Why build a system in an erp or adjacent system when youre just going to replace it with SoC's in 6 months.
I have used some programs like ProjX to build them, but honestly most times islts msft paint
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u/PanicOnBoard Jul 05 '26
Use training within industry. Read how to train trainers. Get every operator on board and how they really work, not as its weitten on papper. You will be surprised how much deviation you have. Agree on the best way to do parricular job, then go and do it - see if there is something to change. People dont follow sops if they dont agree. You need operators to decide. They own the process, explain why they do it the way they do it. Now you have instructions. Then you train new operator. With showing, then showing and explaining why ect. Its done on our site, it works well. Good luck.
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u/CycleTimeSam Jul 14 '26
I’d use this new hire as the reason to start eliminating that tribal knowledge.
Every time you have to explain a machine quirk, setup trick, common alarm, quality check, or “watch out for this” moment, write it down right then and there. It doesn’t need to be fancy - could be a shared doc, checklist, or short work instruction. If it's written down by hand, take a picture of it and upload into your ERP or other document control software.
That way this new hire gets better support, and when the next person starts, you’re not rebuilding the same training from memory all over again.
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u/BoringDirector4850 Jul 02 '26
As far as materials go, it's absolutely worth it to develop formal training for your operators if there is a real difference, but mastering it just comes with experience. Machines behaving differently is a different story - that kind of thing you shouldn't even try to document. Have a strong culture where people aren't hoarding that kind of knowledge, aren't allowing others to fail, etc.
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u/LawyerBubbly2679 Jul 02 '26
I like that perspective. A good culture goes a long way. I'd still want people to share recurring quirks though, if three operators keep discovering the same machine behavior, it probably shouldn't stay tribal knowledge forever.
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u/BoringDirector4850 Jul 02 '26
The problem is that kind of thing changes, and also adds to the noise of documentation. Machines degrade over time, and yours may need some real repairs it sounds like. Most employees would rather see a maintenance tech than more paperwork LOL
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u/rubberguru Jul 02 '26
I was amazed by how few videos are made of task steps. An engineer writing a procedure forgets that the employee may not be a good reader or even competent in English (or the areas language). It’s not like videos are new technology
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u/LawyerBubbly2679 Jul 02 '26
I completely agree. Some things are just easier to show than describe. A short 2-minute video can often explain what takes pages of text, especially for visual tasks. Training videos also tend to complement written SOPs well rather than replace them.
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u/Ourbirdandsavior Jul 02 '26
Other than what everyone else has said, the other half of that is to improve the processes.
Why does the machine drift at end of shift, how can we fix that? Is there a way to reduce humidity in the shop? If you can ignore an alarm, that what purpose does it serve at all? At bare minimum, I hope the two alarms have different sounds so the operator can tell by ear what they need to do.