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.

• Operating or tending stationary engines, boilers, and auxiliary equipment, such as pumps, compressors, or air conditioning equipment, for supplying and maintaining steam or heat for buildings, marine vessels, or pneumatic tools.
• Observing and interpreting readings on gauges, meters, and charts registering various aspects of boiler operation for ensuring that boilers are operating properly.
• Testing boiler water quality or arranging for testing and taking necessary corrective action, such as adding chemicals for preventing corrosion and harmful deposits.
• Activating valves for maintaining required amounts of water in boilers, for adjusting supplies of combustion air, and for controlling the flow of fuel into burners.
• Monitoring boiler water, chemical, and fuel levels, and making adjustments for maintaining required levels.
• Fire coal furnaces by hand or with stokers and gas or oil fed boilers, using automatic gas feeds or oil pumps.