Quick Changeover Concepts Applied Dramatically Reduce Set-Up Time and Increase Production Flexibility with SMED

Shifting from external to internal set-up steps and optimizing your set-up procedure is only the first step in achieving world-class performance. What?s most important is what comes next, cutting down internal set-up times and achieving changeovers that last only a few minutes.

Quick Changeover Concepts Applied: Dramatically Reduce Set-Up Time and Increase Production Flexibility with SMED provides a comprehensive overview of changeovers from a strategic, tactical, and operational perspective. It outlines specific strategies that can help readers shorten internal set-up steps through the physical analysis of machine elements. The method presented is the result of a synthesis of Shigeo Shingo?s classic single-minute exchange of die (SMED) methodology with modern engineering techniques.

Providing readers with the understanding required to significantly reduce internal set-up times, the book explains why efficient changeovers are critical to production scheduling. It redefines set-up and set-up time and details a step-by-step method for developing quick changeover methods in a manner where changes can be realized with minimal spending. Properly implemented, the quick changeover concepts presented, can help you reduce set-up times by up to 95 percent.

The book uses language that is easy to understand to make it accessible to all functions along the value stream?from shop floor operators and industrial engineers to machine designers. It introduces the concept of systems engineering, explains the set-up process and its various elements, and addresses the financial aspects of set-up.

Maintaining an analytical focus, the text describes the theoretical details and includes numerous application examples for every step. It also includes an extensive chapter on fasteners and connection material that presents alternative methods to connect elements that can save you valuable time.

Production Systems in Dynamic Markets. Set-Up in Production. Systems Thinking. Product Portfolio and Process. Elements of the Set-Up. Analysis of a Set-Up. Function, Process Force, and Interface Analysis. Mechanical Fastening. Positioning, Setting, and Adjustment. Organization. Communication. Financial Aspects. Implementation Examples.

Karsten Herr has studied brewing technology and mechanical engineering. He has worked for many years as an operations and production manager and as a commissioning engineer. Since 2004, he has been working as a freelance consulting engineer, training and coaching production companies. He supports production companies of all sectors, in discrete as well as in continuous industries. Projects on which he has worked range from complete production restructuring via optimizing individual value streams to one-off training courses on different topics on process and workplace organization.

He has specialized in the analysis of set-up procedures on machines and processes and the drafting of quick changeover concepts. He is regularly supporting companies with open and in-house workshops and analysis of set-ups and drafting of solutions for quick changeovers as well as running improvement projects of various scopes.

He also works as a lecturer at various universities and professional academies, where he teaches courses on organization and structuring of business processes, systems engineering and systems behavior, production organization and factory planning, and production optimization. His main focus is on Lean, TOC, TPM, QRM, and Six Sigma (Certified Black Belt).

He is has a master´s degree in management and organization from the TiasNimbas Business School, one of Europe´s top business schools.