1. Clarity of Purpose: A supervisor needs to clearly know the business aims he is responsible to deliver. Also they must know clearly the limits and range of their responsibilities and the acceptable behaviours expected of the position. Management needs to provide a document advising what they require of the role and what management will do to support the successful functioning of the role. For a maintenance group the business aims are usually to keep plant and equipment operating in a state that delivers the planned production capacity while delivering the required product quality for the least maintenance cost.
2. Organise: This duty is to ensure that each day maintenance work runs to schedule and to a plan. The supervisor has a diary of work timetabled for each day of the week prepared prior the start of the week. This is their plan of how they will run the week ahead. At the end of each day the plan and schedule for the next day are reviewed, finalised and preparations for tomorrow are completed and made ready for the coming day‘s jobs.
3. Prioritise: The role must make decisions on allocation of resources in situations of constraint. The supervisor is responsible for labour allocation that brings the greatest benefit to the organisation. Which choice brings the greatest benefits is usually discussed with the appropriate manager during information gathering research before publicising the final decision.
4. Lead: This responsibility is a leadership position. To be a leader is to always be at the forefront by example. It means not sending people into situations that they cannot successfully complete because skills and preparations are poor. It includes asserting oneself when one see dangers and risks, not in a negative way that destroys progress, but a way that provides better, safer alternatives to achieve the aims.
5. Set Standards: The supervisor is the keeper of work quality standards. The craftsmanship standards a supervisor supports will be the skill standards their people meet. A supervisor must be in no doubt of what excellence looks like, just as equally as they must be in no doubt what inadequate results and performance looks like. A maintenance supervisor with low work quality standards will allow the ‗gremlins1‘ that cause equipment failure to flourish in their company.
6. Coordinate: The duty of coordination is to ensure everyone doing a maintenance job, or affected by maintenance work, knows exactly what is going on before and after it happens. Every department that uses the maintenance group‘s services need to be aware well ahead of time what the maintenance work is, and how it will affect them. Ideally ever Operations supervisor and operator know by the end of each shift what maintenance work is planned for the next shift. By early each shift every Operations person affected knows the maintenance impacts and requirements for that shift. The maintenance supervisor coordinates with Operations to make sure everyone is ‗on the same‘ page and ensure that they fulfil their requirements for the work to go as planned.
7. Supervise: This means knowing exactly what is going on in good detail with every job at all times. Regularly during the day a supervisor needs to go and see the work for themself and not believe the stories told by someone else. At least half of the day will be involved in understanding how well each workface is progressing and how well each job is being done. Staying informed and current needs a mix of informal and formal meetings during the day and occasional visits to each workface.
8. Monitor Progress: This means keeping an indicator of work progress against the plan. At least every two hours the progress on each work front is updated to its current status. Well before the main shift break a supervisor knows if the day is likely to go successfully or not and initiates necessary action.
9. Report / Inform: The supervisor keeps management fully informed of the workforce performance and
