Any supervisor should excel at:

• Monitoring and reviewing information from materials, events, or the environment.
• Detecting or assessing problems whether real or potential.
• Monitoring and controlling resources and overseeing the spending of money.

Controllers are expected to be good at:

• Using either control mechanisms or direct physical activity to operate manufacturing systems.
• Working with hand operated industrial machines and power tools.
• Adjusting knobs, levers, and physical or touch sensitive buttons in industrial devices.
• Running, maneuvering, navigating, or driving vehicles or mechanized equipment, such as forklifts, passenger vehicles, aircraft, or watercraft.

• Monitoring inventory levels and ordering supplies as necessary.
• Maintaining cleaning working environments, according for cleaning room standards.
• Testing or performing failure analysis for optomechanical or optoelectrical products, according to testing plans.
• Assisting scientists or engineers in the conducting of photonic experiments.
• Performing diagnostic analyses of processing steps, using analytical or metrological tools, such as microscopy, profilometry, or ellipsometry devices.
• Mixing, pouring, or using processing chemicals or gases according to safety standards or established operating procedures.
• Designing, building, or modifying fixtures used to assembling parts.
• Laying out cutting lines for machining, using drafting tools.
• Assisting engineers in the development of new products, fixtures, tools, or processes.
• Assembling or adjusting parts or related electrical units of prototypes to preparing for testing.
• Splicing fibers, using fusion splicing or other techniques.