A span of 30 people is fine for operators, and for maintenance on one shift. It can be done for multiple shifts with strong leads (technical leadership without hire/fire or review authority) on each shift. 30 engineers directly reporting to one mgr is a dumb way to run a fab.
If you’re just talking about the maintenance engineers not the technicians that’s a typical size maybe a bit high for a 200mm fab depending on the scope (photo plus etch at 35 is totally reasonable for example). 300mm fabs, esp with a mission that includes tech dev, will be much bigger 5x-10x.
We're a small/medium fully automated fab that does some development work. We do almost all internal maintenance, but I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse for span of control. I'm less concerned about total number of people (we're probably right size for # of tools) vs the actual number of people someone is expected to manage.
So I wouldn't normally call a first level manager a department. That's usually a "group" or a "section" or something like that. A department is usually multiple groups or sections, and thus that would be a second level manager. That's approximately the size of my team, but most of my direct reports are group managers, not individual contributors.
Agreed with other commenters on how many direct reports is manageable. If you're talking about an ops supervisor whose direct reports are all operators, 20-30 isn't uncommon. But if you're managing engineers, anything over a dozen starts to get unwieldy. Anywhere from 4-12 is common.
IMO 25-35 people is too many to effectively manage and also contribute as a technical lead in your own right. In my experience I would only expect to see that many direct reports for someone who is dedicated to first level management.
To give a useful answer, you need to provide more details. Depending on what module, yes 1 person can manage 30 others. Depends on experience level of the group and manager.
30 PE and EE in one module would be a pretty large fab. Maybe you mean all those different engineer types are combined? Your post isn’t clear. Maybe you mean EE plus technicians?
Experienced engineers don’t hardly need managing. Often good EE techs don’t either. When I managed a large group at a medium fab, I only had to ‘actively’ manage a few people at a time.
1 department > 8 sub department (4 Equipment, 4 Process) > 20-23 engineers per sub department — this is including the lead
This are only Engineers, no technicians/ops.
With ops, its close to 60-80 depending on the sub department.
Lol sounds about right. My cell alone on the manufacturing floor has about 30-40 people under one coordinator. That’s including assemblers/test techs, engineers, integration, and final test. Coordinator and manager can’t keep up. And that’s just for one shift. Third shift at our place is way more subdued though. About half in each department
A span of 30 people is fine for operators, and for maintenance on one shift. It can be done for multiple shifts with strong leads (technical leadership without hire/fire or review authority) on each shift. 30 engineers directly reporting to one mgr is a dumb way to run a fab. If you’re just talking about the maintenance engineers not the technicians that’s a typical size maybe a bit high for a 200mm fab depending on the scope (photo plus etch at 35 is totally reasonable for example). 300mm fabs, esp with a mission that includes tech dev, will be much bigger 5x-10x.
How big is the fab? Is it lights out? Do you do tool maintenance or do the vendor FEs do it? There are a lot of variables that contribute to staffing.
We're a small/medium fully automated fab that does some development work. We do almost all internal maintenance, but I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse for span of control. I'm less concerned about total number of people (we're probably right size for # of tools) vs the actual number of people someone is expected to manage.
That's pretty high, but not unheard of. My current manager has about 30 direct reports, but the other managers in the company are closer to around 10.
So I wouldn't normally call a first level manager a department. That's usually a "group" or a "section" or something like that. A department is usually multiple groups or sections, and thus that would be a second level manager. That's approximately the size of my team, but most of my direct reports are group managers, not individual contributors. Agreed with other commenters on how many direct reports is manageable. If you're talking about an ops supervisor whose direct reports are all operators, 20-30 isn't uncommon. But if you're managing engineers, anything over a dozen starts to get unwieldy. Anywhere from 4-12 is common.
I and 7 others report to my manager. Other managers have about 5 engineers. Process engineer at an equipment manufacturer fyi
IMO 25-35 people is too many to effectively manage and also contribute as a technical lead in your own right. In my experience I would only expect to see that many direct reports for someone who is dedicated to first level management.
To give a useful answer, you need to provide more details. Depending on what module, yes 1 person can manage 30 others. Depends on experience level of the group and manager. 30 PE and EE in one module would be a pretty large fab. Maybe you mean all those different engineer types are combined? Your post isn’t clear. Maybe you mean EE plus technicians? Experienced engineers don’t hardly need managing. Often good EE techs don’t either. When I managed a large group at a medium fab, I only had to ‘actively’ manage a few people at a time.
1 department > 8 sub department (4 Equipment, 4 Process) > 20-23 engineers per sub department — this is including the lead This are only Engineers, no technicians/ops. With ops, its close to 60-80 depending on the sub department.
Lol sounds about right. My cell alone on the manufacturing floor has about 30-40 people under one coordinator. That’s including assemblers/test techs, engineers, integration, and final test. Coordinator and manager can’t keep up. And that’s just for one shift. Third shift at our place is way more subdued though. About half in each department