SMED stands for the Single Minute Exchange of Die, and it is a method/tool/mindset for reducing the change-over time for tools in the production environment. Flexible manufacturing requires frequent tool change-over activities, and they consume available time for production. More lengthy complex change-overs are source of possible manufacturing errors, leading to quality problems and lower productivity. SMED focuses the minds of the production management on simplifying, standardizing and consequently reducing the required change-over time. This leads to development of SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) guiding the require change-over standards.
- Objectives/Key learning points
- Explain the benefits of SMED
- Establish lost production time due to change-overs – current state
- Set a target for reduction
- Develop set of ideas and consequent standard practises for change-overs
- Teaching Methodology
- Quick theoretical introduction (~0.5 day) to the SMED tool
- Implementation Methodology
- Implementation of SMED on a real client example
- Development of the SMED SOP
- Establishment of SMED related KPI measuring the effectiveness of the applied standard