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.

• Adjusting controls to regulating temperature, pressure, loading, or flow of liquids or gases and times of prescribed reactions, according to knowledge of equipment and processes.
• Monitoring gauges, recording instruments, flowmeters, or products for ensuring that specified conditions are maintained.
• Controlling or operating equipment in which chemical changes or reactions taking place during the processing of industrial or consumer products.
• Measuring, weighing, and mixing chemical ingredients, according to specifications.
• Inspecting equipment or units for detecting leaks or malfunctions, shutting equipment down if necessary.
• Patrolling working areas for detecting leaks or equipment malfunctions or for monitoring operating conditions.
• Testing product samples for specific gravity, chemical characteristics, ph levels, concentrations, or viscosities or sending them to laboratories for testing.
• Drawing samples of products at specified stages so that analyses can be performed.
• Recording operational data, such as temperatures, pressures, ingredients used, processing times, or testing results.