Shift starts and finishes: separate necessary work from avoidable waiting
The glazing foreman hears that the crew starts late because installation begins well after arrival. The morning also includes a briefing, equipment checks, a hoist queue and collection of missing materials. The superintendent wants a useful improvement without calling every minute before installation a loss.
Separate necessary activities from avoidable waiting before changing a shift routine. Installation time alone is not the whole workday: planning, checks, movement and cleanup can be necessary work. CCOHS describes housekeeping as an ongoing activity with assigned responsibilities, including work during the shift. Confirm the actual employment and site arrangements with responsible advisers; this observation does not determine paid time or authorize shortening breaks.
Find the queue rather than blame the clock
- Agree the observation boundaries. Identify the crew, days and actual activities to record with the foreman. Explain the purpose and use the employer's approved recording arrangements. Distinguish arrival, briefing, checks, travel, collection, installation and finishing tasks instead of keeping only an arrival-to-first-tool interval.
- Record events and actual users. Note elapsed minutes, people affected and what they were doing. Ask about unusual work or access conditions. Do not multiply one person's longest queue by the full crew or classify someone productively collecting materials as idle merely because another worker is waiting.
- Keep necessary tasks visible. Retain required briefings, inspections, hygiene, agreed breaks and orderly cleanup in the plan. Refer uncertain time classifications to the appropriate adviser. Moving preparation before the recorded start can hide effort rather than remove it, and skipping it may leave the receiving work unready.
- Choose a controllable waiting cause. Locate missing information, an unconfirmed hoist booking or a crib shortage that the responsible team can assess. Check the proposed response against safe access, handling and approved working arrangements. Earlier delivery is useful only if the material has a suitable receiving and storage plan.
- Assign the revised handover. Name who confirms material availability, booking or next-shift readiness and when the foreman receives that confirmation. Include a response for an unresolved item. Preserve the actual start and finish arrangements rather than promising that every crew will hold tools continuously until the final minute.
- Repeat a comparable observation. Compare like tasks and the same defined intervals, including any preparation shifted elsewhere. Retain remaining queues and changed conditions. Review the quality of the handover and necessary finishing work, not simply whether the first installation moved earlier on one day.
Common mistakes
- Calling all time before installation unproductive.
- Moving necessary preparation outside the agreed working arrangements.
- Eliminating cleanup to make the finish metric look better.
- Multiplying one observed queue by people who did not use it.
Checklist
A fair shift-routine review
- Agreed crew and observation boundaries.
- Actual activities, users and elapsed time.
- Necessary work and breaks preserved.
- Assessed response to a specific queue.
- Named receiving and fallback arrangements.
- Comparable follow-up including displaced effort.
Check your understanding
The crew begins installation earlier because it now performs the same preparation before the recorded shift. Has that preparation time been removed?
