Quick Changeover, also known as Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), is a lean manufacturing technique aimed at reducing the time required to switch between different production setups or changeovers. Originally developed by Shigeo Shingo as part of the Toyota Production System (TPS), SMED emphasizes the rapid and efficient exchange of tooling, equipment, and processes to minimize downtime and increase production flexibility.
By streamlining changeover procedures and converting setup tasks into external (performed while the equipment is running) or internal (performed while the equipment is stopped) activities, SMED enables manufacturers to achieve shorter changeover times, improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), and respond more quickly to customer demand.
Separation of Setup Tasks: SMED involves separating setup tasks into external and internal activities to minimize downtime during changeovers. External tasks, such as preparing tools and materials, are performed while the equipment is running, while internal tasks, such as adjusting machine settings, are performed while the equipment is stopped.
Standardization of Setup Procedures: SMED emphasizes the standardization of setup procedures and work instructions to ensure consistency and efficiency across changeover operations. By documenting best practices and standardizing setup tasks, manufacturers can reduce variability and improve reliability in changeover processes.
Elimination of Waste: SMED focuses on eliminating waste associated with setup and changeover activities, such as waiting time, unnecessary motion, and transportation. By identifying and eliminating non-value-added tasks, manufacturers can streamline changeover processes and improve overall productivity.
Methodologies and Approaches
Implementing Quick Changeover (SMED) involves various methodologies and approaches to setup reduction, process optimization, and workflow improvement.
Time Observation and Analysis
Time observation and analysis are used to identify and quantify the various tasks and activities involved in changeover operations. By conducting time studies and analyzing setup procedures, manufacturers can identify opportunities for improvement and prioritize areas for focus in SMED implementation.
Setup Time Reduction Techniques
Setup time reduction techniques, such as standardizing tooling and equipment, pre-staging materials and supplies, and simplifying changeover procedures, are employed to streamline setup processes and minimize downtime. By optimizing setup tasks and sequences, manufacturers can achieve faster changeovers and improve production flexibility.
Equipment Design and Automation
Equipment design and automation play a crucial role in SMED implementation by enabling faster and more efficient changeovers. Manufacturers may invest in equipment modifications, such as quick-release clamps, modular tooling, and automated setup systems, to reduce changeover times and improve operational efficiency.
Benefits of Quick Changeover (SMED)
Quick Changeover (SMED) offers several benefits for manufacturers seeking to improve their production processes and achieve operational excellence.
Reduced Downtime: By minimizing changeover times and increasing equipment uptime, SMED helps reduce downtime and maximize production capacity. This leads to higher throughput rates, shorter lead times, and increased overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).
Improved Flexibility: SMED enables manufacturers to respond more quickly and effectively to changes in customer demand, production requirements, and market conditions. By reducing setup times and changeover complexities, manufacturers can adjust production schedules, change product mix, and accommodate rush orders more efficiently.
Lower Costs: SMED helps reduce costs associated with setup and changeover activities, such as labor, equipment idle time, and lost production opportunities. By streamlining changeover processes and minimizing waste, manufacturers can improve cost efficiency and competitiveness in the marketplace.
Enhanced Quality: SMED promotes a focus on quality and consistency in changeover operations, leading to higher product quality and reliability. By standardizing setup procedures and minimizing variability, manufacturers can reduce the risk of errors, defects, and production delays.
Challenges in Implementing Quick Changeover (SMED)
Despite its benefits, implementing Quick Changeover (SMED) can pose several challenges and considerations for manufacturers.
Cultural Change: Adopting SMED may require a cultural shift within the organization, as it may challenge traditional ways of working and thinking. Resistance to change, lack of buy-in from employees, and entrenched organizational practices can hinder the successful implementation of SMED.
Process Complexity: Implementing SMED requires careful planning, coordination, and optimization of setup processes, equipment, and workflow design. Manufacturers must ensure that changeover procedures are well-defined, standardized, and synchronized to achieve rapid and efficient setup times.
Resource Constraints: Limited resources, such as equipment capacity, manpower, or budget, can pose constraints on SMED implementation. Manufacturers must carefully manage resource allocation and prioritize investments in equipment upgrades, training, and process improvement initiatives.
Strategies for Implementing Quick Changeover (SMED)
To address challenges and maximize the effectiveness of Quick Changeover (SMED), manufacturers can employ various strategies and best practices.
Leadership Commitment: Secure leadership buy-in and commitment to SMED as a strategic imperative for achieving operational excellence and competitive advantage. Leadership support is essential for driving cultural change, aligning organizational goals, and allocating resources effectively.
Employee Involvement: Involve employees at all levels of the organization in the SMED implementation process, from frontline workers to senior management. Encourage collaboration, communication, and knowledge sharing to harness the collective expertise and insights of employees.
Training and Skills Development: Provide training and skills development opportunities to employees to ensure they have the necessary knowledge, skills, and competencies to excel in SMED. Invest in cross-training and multi-skilling to build flexibility and versatility in the workforce.
Continuous Improvement: Embrace a culture of continuous improvement and kaizen (continuous improvement) to drive ongoing refinement and optimization of SMED processes. Encourage experimentation, learning, and adaptation to identify opportunities for improvement and address emerging challenges.
Real-World Examples
Quick Changeover (SMED) is widely used across industries and sectors to optimize setup processes and achieve operational excellence.
Automotive Manufacturing: Automotive manufacturers, such as Toyota, Honda, and Ford, have successfully implemented SMED to reduce changeover times and increase production flexibility. By adopting SMED principles, these companies can adjust production schedules, change product models, and respond quickly to shifting market demands.
Food and Beverage: Food and beverage manufacturers, such as Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo, leverage SMED to streamline setup processes and minimize downtime in their production operations. By implementing SMED, these companies can achieve faster changeovers, reduce setup costs, and improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).
Pharmaceuticals: Pharmaceutical manufacturers, such as Pfizer, Novartis, and Johnson & Johnson, utilize SMED to optimize changeover processes and enhance production efficiency. By adopting SMED principles, these companies can reduce lead times, increase production capacity, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
Conclusion
Quick Changeover (SMED) is a powerful lean manufacturing technique that enables manufacturers to achieve faster setup times, reduce downtime, and increase production flexibility. By streamlining changeover procedures and converting setup tasks into external and internal activities, SMED helps minimize waste, improve efficiency, and enhance responsiveness to customer demand. Despite challenges such as cultural change and process complexity, SMED offers significant benefits for manufacturers across industries, from automotive and food to pharmaceuticals and beyond. As manufacturers continue to pursue operational excellence and competitiveness, SMED will remain a key enabler of efficiency, agility, and innovation in the global marketplace.
Related Frameworks
Description
When to Apply
Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED)
– A methodology for reducing setup or changeover times between production runs to enable smaller batch sizes, increase production flexibility, and minimize downtime. SMED emphasizes identifying and eliminating non-value-added activities and streamlining setup procedures.
– When transitioning between different production runs or product variants. – Implementing SMED techniques to streamline setup procedures, standardize changeover processes, and reduce non-value-added time, enabling more frequent and efficient production changeovers.
Quick Changeover
– Refers to reducing setup or changeover times between production runs to enable smaller batch sizes, increase production flexibility, and minimize downtime. Quick Changeover improves responsiveness and efficiency by optimizing setup procedures and reducing non-value-added activities.
– When transitioning between different production runs or product variants. – Implementing Quick Changeover techniques to minimize setup times, standardize changeover processes, and increase production flexibility, enabling rapid response to changing customer demands and market conditions.
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
– A holistic approach to equipment maintenance that involves operators taking responsibility for routine maintenance tasks, preventive maintenance, and continuous improvement. Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) aims to maximize equipment effectiveness and minimize downtime.
– When managing equipment maintenance and reliability. – Implementing TPM practices to engage operators in equipment care, optimize maintenance schedules, and improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), reducing downtime related to equipment failures or malfunctions.
Standard Work
– Involves documenting and following standardized procedures and best practices to ensure consistency, quality, and efficiency in work processes. Standard Work serves as a baseline for continuous improvement and knowledge sharing.
– When establishing and improving work procedures. – Developing and implementing standardized work instructions to define optimal methods, reduce variation, and enable continuous improvement in setup and changeover processes, increasing efficiency and reducing errors.
Kaizen (Continuous Improvement)
– Refers to continuous improvement through small, incremental changes made by all employees at all levels of an organization. Kaizen focuses on eliminating waste, standardizing processes, and empowering employees to contribute to ongoing improvement efforts, including setup reduction.
– When cultivating a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. – Engaging employees in identifying and implementing small, incremental changes to streamline setup procedures, reduce changeover times, and improve overall efficiency and effectiveness in production processes.
Value Stream Mapping (VSM)
– Visualizes the flow of materials and information through a process or value stream to identify waste, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement. Value Stream Mapping (VSM) helps organizations streamline processes and enhance value delivery.
– When analyzing and optimizing process workflows. – Creating visual representations of setup and changeover processes to identify inefficiencies, prioritize improvement opportunities, and design future state processes that minimize setup times and increase production flexibility.
Gemba Walk
– Involves going to the “gemba” or the actual place where work is done to observe processes, identify inefficiencies, and engage with frontline employees. The Gemba Walk fosters understanding, collaboration, and continuous improvement, including setup reduction efforts.
– When seeking to understand and improve setup and changeover processes. – Going to the gemba to observe firsthand how setup procedures are performed, identify waste and inefficiencies, and collaborate with employees to implement changes that reduce setup times and improve process efficiency.
Continuous Improvement Events (Kaizen Events)
– Structured workshops or events focused on solving specific problems, improving processes, or achieving targeted goals through rapid problem-solving and continuous improvement techniques. Continuous Improvement Events, such as Kaizen events, can be used to address setup reduction challenges and implement Quick Changeover improvements.
– When addressing specific setup reduction challenges or opportunities. – Organizing Kaizen events or workshops to engage cross-functional teams in analyzing setup processes, identifying root causes of setup-related issues, and implementing solutions to reduce setup times and improve production efficiency.
5S Methodology
– A workplace organization methodology focused on creating a clean, organized, and efficient work environment through five principles: Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. 5S Methodology supports setup reduction efforts by creating standardized, organized workstations and storage areas.
– When organizing and standardizing workspaces for setup and changeover activities. – Implementing 5S practices to improve workplace organization, cleanliness, and efficiency in setup and changeover processes, reducing wasted time and effort and increasing productivity.
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle
– A problem-solving and continuous improvement methodology consisting of four stages: Plan (identify problem and plan improvement), Do (implement improvement), Check (measure results and compare against goals), and Act (standardize improvement or iterate further). The PDCA Cycle can be applied to setup reduction initiatives to systematically identify, implement, and validate setup improvement opportunities.
– When implementing setup reduction initiatives and monitoring their effectiveness. – Applying the PDCA Cycle to analyze setup processes, identify improvement opportunities, implement changes, and measure results, iterating as necessary to achieve and sustain setup time reduction targets.
AIOps is the application of artificial intelligence to IT operations. It has become particularly useful for modern IT management in hybridized, distributed, and dynamic environments. AIOps has become a key operational component of modern digital-based organizations, built around software and algorithms.
Agile started as a lightweight development method compared to heavyweight software development, which is the core paradigm of the previous decades of software development. By 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was born as a set of principles that defined the new paradigm for software development as a continuous iteration. This would also influence the way of doing business.
Agile Program Management is a means of managing, planning, and coordinating interrelated work in such a way that value delivery is emphasized for all key stakeholders. Agile Program Management (AgilePgM) is a disciplined yet flexible agile approach to managing transformational change within an organization.
Agile project management (APM) is a strategy that breaks large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. In the APM methodology, each project is completed in small sections – often referred to as iterations. Each iteration is completed according to its project life cycle, beginning with the initial design and progressing to testing and then quality assurance.
Agile Modeling (AM) is a methodology for modeling and documenting software-based systems. Agile Modeling is critical to the rapid and continuous delivery of software. It is a collection of values, principles, and practices that guide effective, lightweight software modeling.
Agile Business Analysis (AgileBA) is certification in the form of guidance and training for business analysts seeking to work in agile environments. To support this shift, AgileBA also helps the business analyst relate Agile projects to a wider organizational mission or strategy. To ensure that analysts have the necessary skills and expertise, AgileBA certification was developed.
Agile leadership is the embodiment of agile manifesto principles by a manager or management team. Agile leadership impacts two important levels of a business. The structural level defines the roles, responsibilities, and key performance indicators. The behavioral level describes the actions leaders exhibit to others based on agile principles.
The andon system alerts managerial, maintenance, or other staff of a production process problem. The alert itself can be activated manually with a button or pull cord, but it can also be activated automatically by production equipment. Most Andon boards utilize three colored lights similar to a traffic signal: green (no errors), yellow or amber (problem identified, or quality check needed), and red (production stopped due to unidentified issue).
Bimodal Portfolio Management (BimodalPfM) helps an organization manage both agile and traditional portfolios concurrently. Bimodal Portfolio Management – sometimes referred to as bimodal development – was coined by research and advisory company Gartner. The firm argued that many agile organizations still needed to run some aspects of their operations using traditional delivery models.
Business innovation is about creating new opportunities for an organization to reinvent its core offerings, revenue streams, and enhance the value proposition for existing or new customers, thus renewing its whole business model. Business innovation springs by understanding the structure of the market, thus adapting or anticipating those changes.
Business modelinnovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies by crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers.
A consumer brand company like Procter & Gamble (P&G) defines “Constructive Disruption” as: a willingness to change, adapt, and create new trends and technologies that will shape our industry for the future. According to P&G, it moves around four pillars: lean innovation, brand building, supply chain, and digitalization & data analytics.
That is a process that requires a continuous feedback loop to develop a valuable product and build a viable business model. Continuous innovation is a mindset where products and services are designed and delivered to tune them around the customers’ problem and not the technical solution of its founders.
A design sprint is a proven five-day process where critical business questions are answered through speedy design and prototyping, focusing on the end-user. A design sprint starts with a weekly challenge that should finish with a prototype, test at the end, and therefore a lesson learned to be iterated.
Tim Brown, Executive Chair of IDEO, defined design thinking as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” Therefore, desirability, feasibility, and viability are balanced to solve critical problems.
DevOps refers to a series of practices performed to perform automated software development processes. It is a conjugation of the term “development” and “operations” to emphasize how functions integrate across IT teams. DevOps strategies promote seamless building, testing, and deployment of products. It aims to bridge a gap between development and operations teams to streamline the development altogether.
Product discovery is a critical part of agile methodologies, as its aim is to ensure that products customers love are built. Product discovery involves learning through a raft of methods, including design thinking, lean start-up, and A/B testing to name a few. Dual Track Agile is an agile methodology containing two separate tracks: the “discovery” track and the “delivery” track.
eXtreme Programming was developed in the late 1990s by Ken Beck, Ron Jeffries, and Ward Cunningham. During this time, the trio was working on the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (C3) to help manage the company payroll system. eXtreme Programming (XP) is a software development methodology. It is designed to improve software quality and the ability of software to adapt to changing customer needs.
Feature-Driven Development is a pragmatic software process that is client and architecture-centric. Feature-Driven Development (FDD) is an agile software development model that organizes workflow according to which features need to be developed next.
A Gemba Walk is a fundamental component of lean management. It describes the personal observation of work to learn more about it. Gemba is a Japanese word that loosely translates as “the real place”, or in business, “the place where value is created”. The Gemba Walk as a concept was created by Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System of lean manufacturing. Ohno wanted to encourage management executives to leave their offices and see where the real work happened. This, he hoped, would build relationships between employees with vastly different skillsets and build trust.
GIST Planning is a relatively easy and lightweight agile approach to product planning that favors autonomous working. GIST Planning is a lean and agile methodology that was created by former Google product manager Itamar Gilad. GIST Planning seeks to address this situation by creating lightweight plans that are responsive and adaptable to change. GIST Planning also improves team velocity, autonomy, and alignment by reducing the pervasive influence of management. It consists of four blocks: goals, ideas, step-projects, and tasks.
The ICE Scoring Model is an agile methodology that prioritizes features using data according to three components: impact, confidence, and ease of implementation. The ICE Scoring Model was initially created by author and growth expert Sean Ellis to help companies expand. Today, the model is broadly used to prioritize projects, features, initiatives, and rollouts. It is ideally suited for early-stage product development where there is a continuous flow of ideas and momentum must be maintained.
An innovation funnel is a tool or process ensuring only the best ideas are executed. In a metaphorical sense, the funnel screens innovative ideas for viability so that only the best products, processes, or business models are launched to the market. An innovation funnel provides a framework for the screening and testing of innovative ideas for viability.
According to how well defined is the problem and how well defined the domain, we have four main types of innovations: basic research (problem and domain or not well defined); breakthrough innovation (domain is not well defined, the problem is well defined); sustaining innovation (both problem and domain are well defined); and disruptive innovation (domain is well defined, the problem is not well defined).
The innovation loop is a methodology/framework derived from the Bell Labs, which produced innovation at scale throughout the 20th century. They learned how to leverage a hybrid innovation management model based on science, invention, engineering, and manufacturing at scale. By leveraging individual genius, creativity, and small/large groups.
The Agile methodology has been primarily thought of for software development (and other business disciplines have also adopted it). Lean thinking is a process improvement technique where teams prioritize the value streams to improve it continuously. Both methodologies look at the customer as the key driver to improvement and waste reduction. Both methodologies look at improvement as something continuous.
A startup company is a high-tech business that tries to build a scalable business model in tech-driven industries. A startup company usually follows a lean methodology, where continuous innovation, driven by built-in viral loops is the rule. Thus, driving growth and building network effects as a consequence of this strategy.
As pointed out by Eric Ries, a minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort through a cycle of build, measure, learn; that is the foundation of the lean startup methodology.
Kanban is a lean manufacturing framework first developed by Toyota in the late 1940s. The Kanban framework is a means of visualizing work as it moves through identifying potential bottlenecks. It does that through a process called just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing to optimize engineering processes, speed up manufacturing products, and improve the go-to-market strategy.
Jidoka was first used in 1896 by Sakichi Toyoda, who invented a textile loom that would stop automatically when it encountered a defective thread. Jidoka is a Japanese term used in lean manufacturing. The term describes a scenario where machines cease operating without human intervention when a problem or defect is discovered.
The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle was first proposed by American physicist and engineer Walter A. Shewhart in the 1920s. The PDCA cycle is a continuous process and product improvement method and an essential component of the lean manufacturing philosophy.
RAD was first introduced by author and consultant James Martin in 1991. Martin recognized and then took advantage of the endless malleability of software in designing development models. Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a methodology focusing on delivering rapidly through continuous feedback and frequent iterations.
Retrospective analyses are held after a project to determine what worked well and what did not. They are also conducted at the end of an iteration in Agile project management. Agile practitioners call these meetings retrospectives or retros. They are an effective way to check the pulse of a project team, reflect on the work performed to date, and reach a consensus on how to tackle the next sprint cycle. These are the five stages of a retrospective analysis for effective Agile project management: set the stage, gather the data, generate insights, decide on the next steps, and close the retrospective.
Scaled Agile Lean Development (ScALeD) helps businesses discover a balanced approach to agile transition and scaling questions. The ScALed approach helps businesses successfully respond to change. Inspired by a combination of lean and agile values, ScALed is practitioner-based and can be completed through various agile frameworks and practices.
The SMED (single minute exchange of die) method is a lean production framework to reduce waste and increase production efficiency. The SMED method is a framework for reducing the time associated with completing an equipment changeover.
The Spotify Model is an autonomous approach to scaling agile, focusing on culture communication, accountability, and quality. The Spotify model was first recognized in 2012 after Henrik Kniberg, and Anders Ivarsson released a white paper detailing how streaming company Spotify approached agility. Therefore, the Spotify model represents an evolution of agile.
As the name suggests, TDD is a test-driven technique for delivering high-quality software rapidly and sustainably. It is an iterative approach based on the idea that a failing test should be written before any code for a feature or function is written. Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an approach to software development that relies on very short development cycles.
Timeboxing is a simple yet powerful time-management technique for improving productivity. Timeboxing describes the process of proactively scheduling a block of time to spend on a task in the future. It was first described by author James Martin in a book about agile software development.
Scrum is a methodology co-created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland for effective team collaboration on complex products. Scrum was primarily thought for software development projects to deliver new software capability every 2-4 weeks. It is a sub-group of agile also used in project management to improve startups’ productivity.
Scrumban is a project management framework that is a hybrid of two popular agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban is a popular approach to helping businesses focus on the right strategic tasks while simultaneously strengthening their processes.
Scrum anti-patterns describe any attractive, easy-to-implement solution that ultimately makes a problem worse. Therefore, these are the practice not to follow to prevent issues from emerging. Some classic examples of scrum anti-patterns comprise absent product owners, pre-assigned tickets (making individuals work in isolation), and discounting retrospectives (where review meetings are not useful to really make improvements).
Scrum at Scale (Scrum@Scale) is a framework that Scrum teams use to address complex problems and deliver high-value products. Scrum at Scale was created through a joint venture between the Scrum Alliance and Scrum Inc. The joint venture was overseen by Jeff Sutherland, a co-creator of Scrum and one of the principal authors of the Agile Manifesto.
Six Sigma is a data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating errors or defects in a product, service, or process. Six Sigma was developed by Motorola as a management approach based on quality fundamentals in the early 1980s. A decade later, it was popularized by General Electric who estimated that the methodology saved them $12 billion in the first five years of operation.
Stretch objectives describe any task an agile team plans to complete without expressly committing to do so. Teams incorporate stretch objectives during a Sprint or Program Increment (PI) as part of Scaled Agile. They are used when the agile team is unsure of its capacity to attain an objective. Therefore, stretch objectives are instead outcomes that, while extremely desirable, are not the difference between the success or failure of each sprint.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an early form of lean manufacturing created by auto-manufacturer Toyota. Created by the Toyota Motor Corporation in the 1940s and 50s, the Toyota Production System seeks to manufacture vehicles ordered by customers most quickly and efficiently possible.
The Total Quality Management (TQM) framework is a technique based on the premise that employees continuously work on their ability to provide value to customers. Importantly, the word “total” means that all employees are involved in the process – regardless of whether they work in development, production, or fulfillment.
The waterfall model was first described by Herbert D. Benington in 1956 during a presentation about the software used in radar imaging during the Cold War. Since there were no knowledge-based, creative software development strategies at the time, the waterfall method became standard practice. The waterfall model is a linear and sequential project management framework.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
