You’ve just been promoted to Plant Operations supervisor. What are the skills you need to succeed?

As a Plant Operations Supervisor, you must care about: - Safety - Quality - Throughput - Productivity - Delivery - Cost Hitting targets doesn't happen by accident. Thus, you must be familiar with the technical side of your business. This means you must know the processes, the people, their capabilities, your equipment, and customer requirements. Next, you need to be able to identify where the gaps are in the system in order to minimize errors, and issues. For example, not all parts can be ran on the same equipment, nor have the same cycle times. This is valuable knowledge in a plant, and can be leveraged to improved the plant's performance. Finally, never stop learning. Make it a point to learn something new every single week.

Encontrar el punto de equilibrio para satisfacer los objetivos de los Stakeholders es complicado; sin embargo, el liderazgo de un supervisor es clave para mantener un balance adecuado entre el clima laboral, rentabilidad y satisfacción del cliente. Las funciones de un supervisor comúnmente son confundidas, ya que la mayoría de ellos creen que dar vueltas alrededor de los trabajadores es "supervisar"; sin embargo, supervisar se resume a entrenar, involucrarse en el proceso, atender a los clientes internos, verificar la calidad, pero sobretodo a negociar con diferentes niveles jerárquicos de la organización.

Leadership skills are the soft skills that are generally not taught in school. These skills include things like: - Stress management - Empathy - Decision making - Recognizing team performance - Clear communication - The ability to be steadfast under pressure - Conflict resolution Most of the skills listed above are not learned in a classroom, but rather from a career where you get to observe other leaders, practice your skills through various experiences, and reflect on the decisions you made. I would argue that your soft skills are more important than your hard skills as they have the ability to motivate, and influence your entire team either positively, or negatively. While education is important, don't neglect your soft skills.

Organizational skills are one of the most important elements to your success. Here are a few tips that I have used in the past that have made me successful: 1. At the end of the day, make a to-do list for tomorrow. 2. Set important reminders on your calendar. Invite others as needed. 3. For all important communications, write it down in an email. 4. Scan all printed, and written documents into your computer. 5. Create organized folders, and subfolders on your computer. The folders I typically use are: - HESS, or Safety - Operations - Continuous Improvement - Manpower - Quality/Returns - Shortcuts By using the folder system above, you will get faster at finding your documents. Finally, create a folder with shortcuts to common files.

Organizational skills are among some of the most important skills you can have. For example: - Project management - Setting, and organizing your priorities - Solving complex quality issues by structuring the problem, and solutions - Keeping track of deadlines - Maintaining control over sensitive documents As a Plant Operations Supervisor, you are required to make improvements to the business. Your superiors will have more more confidence in your ability to manage, and lead projects and teams if they feel confident in your ability to keep a clean work space, organized computer file system, and demonstrate clear indications of organization such as the use of a notebook, calendar, and other organizational systems.

Analytical skills will take your far as a Plant Operations professional. While some decisions can be made using gut feelings, your chance of success, and the chance of others buying into your plan are far greater if you are able to convince them using data. Furthermore, you may be able to leverage your analytical skills to also incorporate Pivot tables, and Charts. During my career, Pivot tables have been an essential sidekick helping me analyze data, and make decisions quickly. For example, today I was able to determine the TOC by department using a Pivot table, which I then used to support a decision regarding headcount allocation. If you are able to supplement your strong leadership skills with analytical skills then you will do well.

Interpersonal sills are going to be at the top of the list for what you will need. As a Plant Operations Supervisor, you will need to: - Motivate - Coach - Discipline - Comfort - Deliver bad news - Train - Develop - Listen Interpersonal skills will help you work with your team, coworkers, superiors, and both internal, and external customers. Everyone likes people that are easy to get along with, that help them find solutions, and that collaborate with them effectively. Your interpersonal skills will help others to like you, which can have enormous rewards for your long-term career goals. Finally, as you move up the ladder, know that your soft skills become more important, and your technical skills become less important.

Based on technical knowledge and individual performance an employee at operator level get promoted to supervisor level where that employee need to develop people management skills along with cross function collaboration and resources allocation skills.

Knowledge to transfer the technical skills and awareness to down the level team in systematic approach. Just simple what he learnt is shared methodically. Ensure deliverables

Understand the responsibility & accountability of that new position. Derive KPI achievement plan according to business plans/objectives Lead, review & monitor the team to achieve their goals/tasks Focus on people development