SMED: Quick changeover
Cut a machine's downtime between two production runs by at least half, by observing a real changeover, separating what is done with the machine stopped from what is done with the machine running, then locking the new method into a standard that is tracked over time.
This course is aimed at team leaders, setters, methods technicians and shop floor managers who lose hours of production every day to tooling, format or recipe changeovers. SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die, "tool changeover in a single-digit number of minutes") is Shigeo Shingo's method for attacking this time machine by machine.
By the end, you will know how to measure a changeover between the right boundaries, choose the machine to start with, film and break down a changeover into elementary operations, distinguish internal operations from external ones, convert the former into the latter, hunt down the remaining waste, then write the standard and check week after week that it holds. Introductory level: no prior workshop is required, a machine and a stopwatch are enough.
What you will be able to do
- Measure a changeover time between the right boundaries: last good part of A, first good part of B at nominal rate.
- Choose the first machine for an SMED workshop and set a quantified target (50% reduction at minimum for a first workshop).
- Film and break down a changeover into elementary operations, with their duration and the associated movements.
- Classify each operation as internal (machine stopped) or external (machine running), then group the internal ones.
- Convert internal operations into external ones and reduce the duration of the remaining operations by eliminating Muda.
- Write a changeover standard and track the actual time over several weeks to detect drift.
The path
- Measuring the changeover between the right boundaries 4 min
- Measuring the real changeover time 4 min
- Choosing the first machine and setting the target 4 min
- Observing and filming a changeover without distorting it 5 min
- Filming and breaking down the changeover into elementary operations 5 min
- Classify as internal or external, then group 4 min
- Converting to external and reducing what remains 4 min
- Write the standard and hold the result over time 4 min
Prerequisites
Know how at least one machine in the shop works and have witnessed a changeover. Knowing what a Muda (waste) is helps, but is not a condition. No knowledge of OEE or 5S is required; a workstation that is already tidy does, however, make the workshop easier.
The closing quiz
The topic ends with a 7-question quiz, and a certificate is issued on success.