| Staff Recruitment and Selection Testing
The Kingsway Centre offers employers a selection of industrially relevant practical assessments to help them to select and recruit staff with the skills and adaptability to work effectively in a continually improving manufacturing environment.
The assessments are based around our Soap Manufacturing line, which has manufacturing units, which are very similar to those found in many industries.
A typical assessment may be New recruits team working when 1, 2 or 3 teams of 2/3 have to perform a line change over from one product (and its packing) to another. The team will observe a batch of soap being produced and be given an overview of the operation of the machines major cells. The assessment starts with a risk assessment of the working area and identification of PPE requirements. The teams will then each be given a cell to undertake the change over on.
During this stage they must demonstrate the ability to plan their work/manning levels and select and safely use the required tools. The change over always introduces many faults and a range of sensor re-alignments which must be solved before the cell will run in auto. This should show faultfinding and what if skills, with the motivation of pride in making it work. These assessments make it very easy to see those who co-operate and make it easy for other team members to complete their tasks. Candidates can be swapped from one team to another as a check on the judgements about them.
Communications and good practice in such as marking removed components can be assessed by calling shift change and making the outgoing team brief the incoming team about where they are up to. During all of this activity each stage can be timed and the teams challenged to come up with improvement ideas to decrease change over time to a set of benchmark times. This can introduce elements 5S and SMED principles as well as other Lean technologies. They can be asked to critique Standard Operating Procedures and rewrite them in a way to make them understandable by anyone no matter what their basic skill level.
This assessment allows those whose skills are doing rather than in being interviewed, to shine. The process is so convincingly real that the candidates become totally absorbed in making the line run, and they show their true abilities. Hence companies will find staff that can perform, are capable of development and are likely to be retained within the industry.
Typical courses using the manufacturing line
The soap manufacturing line, with differing introductory scenarios, can be adapted to be the core component in selection tests such as:
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New recruits team working
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Suitability of Operators for Operator Maintainer roles
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Basic engineering for Operator-maintainer
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Introductory operator training
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Team Building for teams at all levels
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Selecting skills mix for multi-disciplined teams
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Use of hand tools
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Sequential control and faultfinding problem solving
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Technical trouble shooting
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Production Planning for middle managers
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Fixed and variable costing for decision takers
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Factors in product costing for supervisors
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Team building for senior managers
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Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and sequential control
Selection of Craft Grades
For selection of craft grades the selection process may involve such as:
3 x 30 min 1:1 trade specific practical assessments
1 x 30 min 1:1 Health and safety assessment
1 x 30 min 1:1 interview
1 x 180 min group teamwork assessment
Trade specific tests are available for all trade areas that can be mixed and matched or added to suit your plant operations and/or equipment. They could also be used to assess skills or suitability for multi-skilling training.
Typical 30 min practical assessments
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Shaft alignment
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Thread and bearing identification
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Recognition of process instrumentation
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Tests on a flow/level control loop
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Pneumatic or hydraulic faultfinding
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Electric motor testing
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Electrical circuit testing
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Star-delta starters
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Sequential control and PLCs
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Trouble shooting and fault finding
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Risk assessment/manual handling/slinging/COSHH singly or in combination
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Oxy-fuel cutting
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Pipe work, etc.
Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement techniques
We also offer a unique way of making a real bottom line difference in your company through Business Improvement Technologies (BIT) or Lean Tools. Many competitors deliver BIT training in a classroom talking about making cups of tea of folding paper gliders. This may be very interesting on the day, but in terms of lasting cultural change to the company, it mostly fails to make an impact.
The power of lean technologies derives from the fact they involve a number of rigidly sequenced applications of good manufacturing practice. This power is realised when the output documentation of one stage feeds seamlessly into the input of the next stage. If the inter stage documentation does not match up or all stages are not completed in the correct sequence, then this power is lost or diluted.
We however run the training wholly on the manufacturing line. The attendees have a structured workbook, for the technique involved, which provides the analytical tools and documentation to step them through the individual Lean tool.
Initially we time the production of a batch of soap and the original data and timings are captured. This data is analysed and the results fed on and process changes are made, which result in new data to be captured etc. The advantage of our approach is that the attendees have learned about and carried out the technique in a safe process environment. They thus have experience and a documentation structure, which will allow them to employ it effectively in the workplace. The industrial scale up from this learning approach is much less daunting than it would be with other methods of delivery.
Lean Techniques covered in these workshops include:
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Lean 5s
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Lean Value Stream Mapping (VSM)
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Lean Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED)
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Lean Kaisen
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Lean Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
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Lean Flexible Manufacturing |
