2010 Management and Control of Production Logistics

University of Coimbra, Portugal

September 8-10, 2010

Improving setup time in a Press Line – Application of the SMED methodology

Andreia Simões*. Alexandra Tenera**

*Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT) da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL)

Campus Universitário, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal (e-mail: andreia__simoes@sapo.pt)

**UNIDEMI, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT) da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL)
Campus Universitário, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal (e-mail: abt@fct.unl.pt)

Abstract: The market environment in which companies are included nowadays has dramatically changed
with the reduction of tax barriers, which consequently increased the competitiveness. Competing in an
international market is now a reality for all enterprises and in consequent, the effect of globalization is
even more felt. Therefore, companies have once again to gather efforts and reduce their production costs
through waste elimination and productivity increase.
SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die), a tool created by Shigeo Shingo allows waste reduction in
productive processes, making it more efficient and flexible. This approach proposes waste elimination
through the reduction of non-production time in each machine, more precisely, the reduction of the time
needed for tool change in a machine (or setup time). Its application has a special incidence in the
automotive sector and in the plastic industry. In this article, SMED will be apply to a press line in the
automotive industry in which the use of a Gantt chart in SMED’s time study will be proposed in order to
consider parallelism between operations.

last few years. From this last studies we can see that the
1. INTRODUCTION
SMED method and its variations have been applied in several
In actual markets there is a great variety of products different processes such as: mold industry (Alves, 2009)
available. As greater as it is the amount of different products (Couto, 2008), pharmaceutical industry (Kanzawa, 2006),
available, the smaller will be the lot size for each one of transformation industry (Fagundes & Fogliatto, 2003; Mota,
them. Besides this, product life cycle also decreased 2007), metallurgical industry (Elias, Rocha, Memória &
considerably, as a consequence of the constant need of Dyna, 2008) and textile industry (Moxham & Greatbanks,
evolution, which is a necessary condition to accompany the 2001). The different contributions in terms of SMED
market movements and to give a better answer to the implementation are presented in Table 1.
customers' demanding needs. To face this situation, it is
Table 1. Main Contributions to Shingo SMED’s classical approach
urgent that organizations acquire versatility so that they can
increase its production, flexibility and also decrease its costs, Study Year
Main differences to SMED’s
in order to place new products in the market at the lowest classical approach
cost possible. It’s in this context that quick changeover Use statistical tools to test the need to
techniques appear like Shingo’s SMED approach (Lopes, Alves 2009 perform separate SMED
implementations
Neto & Pinto, 2009). The acronym SMED stands for Single
Stands for the utilization of Taguchi
Minute Exchange of Die (Shingo, 1985) and the approach Couto 2008
method to improve parametric setups
was designed to enable reduction of machine downtimes Integrates SMED with other techniques
through the improvement of changeover process. Elias, Rocha,
such as metrology, techical design and
Memória & 2008
Products change operations, tool change or tool adjustments, 5S and promotes proactivity in problem
Dyna
solving
are designated as setup or changeover operations. During the
Stands that SMED implementation
performance of these operations it is considered that there’s success depends on team work, but also
no added value in the productive system, since there’s time Mota 2007
on collaborators involvement and
spent and costs are added to the product without direct value commitment
creation. More when setup times are too high, it becomes Proposes a production efficency study
necessary to produce bigger size lots and therefore make Kanzawa 2006
before SMED’s implementation.
stock, which can increase the overall production costs. So the Stands for the utilization of a
Moxham &
time spent in changeovers is in general considered as a waste 2001 preparatory stage before SMED’s
Greatbanks
and consequently it should be minimized or, if possible, implementation
eliminated. Shigeo Shingo SMED approach and some Fagundes & Clear distinction between planning,
2003
variations of it have been applied over the years as well as Fogliatto preparation and implementation phases
several implementation studies have been published in the

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2. THE SMED’s CLASSICAL APPROACH
Shingo’s SMED approach can be seen as a systematic
approach to reduce the setup time, which can be used in any
industrial unit and machine. According to this method, total
setup corresponds to the interval of time elapsed among the
last part with quality produced of a lot and the first part with
quality of the following lot.
In agreement with Shingo (1985), the method should be
applied in four main phases exposed in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The four phase of SMED’s classical approach
From Figure 1 it’s possible to see the evolution of the SMED
implementation classical phases and its main goals. As we
moved forward in the implementation, the setup time should
decrease, along with the waste resulted from the downtimes
and each SMED phases can be summarized as follows:
• PHASE 0 – In this phase, there isn’t a clearly
separation between activities that must be performed
while the equipment is stopped (activities not
making parts or internal activities) and the ones that
can be done while equipment is running (activities
making parts or external activities). In this phase the
involvement of everyone is critical and should be
specifically assured;
• PHASE 1 – This phase refers to the detailed
characterization, organization and separation of the
operations in internal or external. Shingo (1985)
considers this the most important phase from which
the setup can be reduced from 30% to 50%;
• PHASE 2 – In this phase, a new analysis of all
operations should be done to verify the classification
done in the previous phase and focus effort should
be directed to convert internal operations into
external (Sugai, 2007). For Shingo (1985) the
implementation of this phase should allow an
improvement from 10% to 30% in the total time of
internal setup of the previous phase;
• PHASE 3 – in this last phase, the main goal is to
reduce the time of internal and external operations,
through the application of the identified solutions
that will allow an easy, fast and secure performance.
As exposed the proposal of the method is very generic so it is
necessary to adjust the improvement measures to the reality
of the area or sector of the company. This adaptation should
keep in mind not only the reality of the company and its
values, but also the goals that the company intends to reach
with its implementation.
3. PROPOSED SMED’s IMPLEMENTATION METHOD
As uncovered in the previous section one of the most critical
factors for SMED’s implementation success is the correct
identification of internal and external operations. Therefore,
to guarantee its correct application, several steps should be
taken (Imen, 2005):
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1) Observe the actual changeover procedure;
2) Identify and separate internal from external
operations;
3) Convert internal operations in external;
4) Present solutions that will allow internal operations
improvement, i.e., the reduction of the time spent in
the remaining internal activities;
5) Improve, also, the external operations;
6) Finally, analyze the obtained results and repeat the
previous steps until the proposed goal has been
reached.
Based on this logic for SMED’s implementation a proposed
method will be developed in order to systematically improve
the changeover time in SMED’s classical implementation
process. The goal is to design a systematic way to reduce the
required time to perform a tool change in order to achieve the
best results possible, i.e., to reduce as much as possible the
required time to perform a tool change in a formal and
systematic way. The proposed implementation method and its
tools will then be tested in a press line as showed and
discussed in the following section.
3.1 Data gathering procedure
In order to accomplish SMED’s implementation, a data
gathering procedure must be implemented, which should be
divided, in three main phases:
1. Observation of the current changeover method;
2. Informal interviews with collaborators;
3. Documentation of the collected data.
For the first phase the main goal is to obtain a diagnosis,
which is only possible after a gather of some process related
information, such as:
• Performed activities and its sequence;
• Activities duration;
• Particular aspects related to activities;
• Critical points that reduce setup procedure
effectiveness/efficiency.
3.2 Operation Analysis Chart
To perform a data gathering it’s necessary to choose an
adequate tool to do so. For this matter it’s necessary to
observe the actual process to identify its main characteristics
and constraints and then define the type of information
required about the process and its operations. In this case
study, changeover process was complex so it was decided to
collect as many information as possible about the process.
Therefore, it was decided to use operations analysis charts to
classify all process operations and then do the time study.
All the processes may be studied through their decomposition
into activities. In each process, depending on the product,
organizational and managerial culture, those activities present
several differences. However, there is a classification set of 5
types of activities that can be identifying in all processes
(Team, 1996):
1. Processing: assembly, disassembly, changes in
shape or quality;
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2. Inspection: feature comparison against a standard;
3. Transportation: change of operator, resource or tool
placement;
4. Waiting: predicted or unavoidable inactivity of the
operators or the equipment that interrupt the work
cycle;
5. Storage: corresponds to the period of time during
which resources, work in progress (WIP) and
finished products are not processed, transported or
inspected.
Each type of operation has an associated classical graphic
notation, which is presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Standard graphical notation for each type of operation
Activity symbol Activity Type
Processing
Inspection
Transportation
Storage
Waiting
As proposed and applied by Alves (2009) the operation
analysis chart will allow the mapping of the activities that
occur during a production process, thus being an essential
tool in its characterization. The classification of all activities
according to the 5 types presented in Table 1, as well as the
definition of its sequence in the process, is mandatory. Using
a registry sheet format it’s also possible to fill in additional
information as showed in the extract of the operation analysis
template considered in the study and presented in Table 3.
Table 3. Operation analysis chart (extract)
Based on the information collected and after their analysis, a
diagnosis of the current changeover procedure will be
possible to develop. The operation analysis chart will enable
a detailed characterization of the time spent on each
operation, as well as about the time spent in each group of
operations (processing, inspection, transportation, storage and
waiting).
However, if operations parallelism should be addressed the
operation analysis chart will not enable to characterize the
real changeover duration. Therefore, for addressing
operations parallelism in changeovers, a Gantt type chart
should also be integrated and applied.
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3.3 The Time study
After identifying and classifying all the activities of the
changeover procedure for each activity, their duration should
be register. In order to guarantee result reliability it’s
necessary to do a significant number of observations.
Assuming that the setup time follows a normal distribution,
the necessary number of observations to determine the
standard time can be given by the following formula:
2
⎛ z ×σ ⎞
N =⎜ ⎟ (eq.1)
⎝ s× X ⎠
Where,
• N – number of observations to perform;
• z – number of standard deviations, corresponding to
the desired trust degree;
• – standard deviation of the observed durations
according to the average;
• s – error associated to the measurement;
• – Observed durations average of the changeovers
(considering a sample of N dimension).
The guidelines to implement the proposed approach are
presented in Figure 2. In this approach it’s necessary to
consider what is desirable for the reality of the enterprise;
therefore we need to make some decisions along the process
as shown.
As exposed in Figure 2 to gather the data, three main phases
can be identified:
• Collected times for a certain number of changeovers;
• Performed informal interview to collaborators;
• Video recording.
After gathering the available data it’s necessary to register
and document it in the register sheet. Then, choose the
desired time study precision and select the adequate tools as
exposed. In this approach it should be notice that after a first
analysis of the data collected it’s necessary to determine the
correct total number of observations to do, according to the
chosen trust level.
If there is activity parallelism in the process, it’s necessary to
apply a Gantt chart. This way it’s possible to fully study the
process duration, in order to identify more inefficiencies and
improvements. After that, an impact study of those
improvements should be done to conclude about their
implementation viability.
4. IMPLEMENTATION CASE STUDY
To test the proposed approach a press line, more specifically
a tandem line in automotive industry will be used. The press
line in this study is constituted by:
• Two destakers (right and left) – enable the input of
raw material in the line;
• One washing machine – element of the press line
whose functions are to wash and to lubricate the raw
material and that is used when external car pieces
are produced;
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• One lubricate machine – element of the press whose
function is, only, to lubricate the raw material and
that is used when interior car pieces are produced;
• Six presses;
• Five cells;
• Final automation – robots positioned in the end of
the line and that enable the placement of the
produced pieces in the rugs;
• Two exit rugs;
• Two part removal – robots located at the end of the
rugs and that they enable the storage of produced
pieces, in the racks.
Figure 2. Chosen process study approach
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According to official organizational information, the standard
setup time in this Tandem line should be 23:33 minutes, but
that information available dates of 1995 and during the last
15 years aspects such as technologic and tool design changes,
changeover procedure modification and others may certainly
influenced this value.
So, considering actual production data available, the annual
average setup time between 2004 and 2008 is shown in
Figure 3. The graphic shows that the durations are bigger
than the 23:33 minutes initially assumed.
Figure 3. Evolution of the average setup time
4.1 Data gathering procedure implementation
According to the earlier proposed approach the procedure
used in the case study gathering data was:
1. Observation of the current changeover method.
Given the quantity and the parallelism of activities
to be performed during a setup process, it was
necessary to do video recording in order to
determine the operations execution time, which
enables the repeated visualization, allowing a better
and careful analysis of the changeover process;
2. Develop informal interviews to the collaborators - in
order to gain more acknowledgements about the
changeover procedure, to identify operators’ main
difficulties and to know their opinion about how
things should be done during the changeover, it was
necessary to do some informal interviews to team
leaders, team members and also machine specialists;
3. Documentation of the collected data into a registry
sheet elaborated according to the chosen technique
(see Table 3 presented earlier).
4.2 Operation Analysis Results
The gathered data was registered in several sheets like the
one exemplified in Table 4. All the fields should field in,
unless the data doesn’t exist in the process.
After careful observation of Table 4 we can verified that for
each changeover it’s necessary to take note of some aspects
related with the production shift working in the moment of
data gathering like Shifts (1, 2 or 3) or Teams (A or B). It’s
also important to register information related to the date and
person responsible for data gathering for future check
proposes.
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Table 4. Operation analysis chart
Note that it was also important to classify the activities in
agreement with its nature (M – Manual and A – Automatic)
because of the operations study tools choice and operations
conversion needs. If any additional changeover observations
is considered relevant should also be included in the assigned
registration sheet. Because in this case study, operations
parallelism was relevant to the changeover duration
characterization, a Gantt type chart was developed as
presented in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Observed operations times and sequence in the tool change
In Figure 4, each one of the bars corresponds to one activity
and in this particular case there are activities such as:
• 1st Start of each press;
• 2nd Start of each press;
• Begin changeover on P2 to P6 (press 2 to press 6);
• Waiting for operator to change presses;
• Change presses;
• Close doors;
• Waiting for operator to begin 2nd Start;
• Automation change;
• New production start up;
Considering the information about the start and end time of
each operation and the functional constrains of each one of
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them, it’s possible to obtain a total duration of 18:58 minutes
for the changeover process of Figure 4.
For each one of the observations made a Gantt chart like the
one presented, was developed, from which it was possible to
determine each setup time considering parallel activities.
Notice that for the construction of the Gantt chart it’s
necessary to have information about the start and end instant
of each operation. This is where video recording is very
helpful.
4.3 Time Study Results
According to equation 1 presented we have to choose the
intended error of the study. In this case the desirable
measurement precision considered was: a trust level of 95%
for which z=1,96, and an intended relative error of 5%
corresponding to an average precision study in the
organizational scale precisions.
Given the average and standard deviation of the setup time,
obtained after the observation of changeover procedure, and
the study chosen precision, 7 observations of setup times
were collected.
After the construction of the seven Gantt charts the average
setup time for the tool change was calculated in the Tandem
line, showing a 29:01 minutes of average setup time for the
tool change in the press line. This duration includes 22:14
minutes of pure changeover time and 6:47 minutes to new
production start up as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Average setup time for tool change in the press line
4.4 Tool Change Procedure
After the observation, registration and analysis of the 7
changeovers, it was possible to deepen knowledge about the
process and the improvement of internal operations was done
by installation of a new robot in the end of the line, placing 2
operators in each automation cell and changing the order of
automation changeover.
After the implementation of these changes the medium
duration of the tool change became 20:46 minutes, where
15:23 minutes are pure time of change and 5:23 minutes are
spent in the start up of the new production, as shown in
Figure 6.
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Figure 6. Improvement obtained in global setup time
Analyzing Figure 6, it’s possible to see that a decrease of
06:51 minutes is verified in the duration of the pure time of
change, which represents an improvement of 31% when
compared to the original procedure. Concerning start up time,
there was a decrease of 01:24 minutes, which corresponds to
an improvement of 21%. This decrease corresponds to a
global improvement of 28%.
Global improvement value is below the 45% that would be
desirable for a first implementation of SMED, but in this case
study the process is already very well established and is no
longer possible to improve the press time of change without
new investments which could lead to a reduction of 47.5% in
the setup time (Simões, 2010).
5. RESULTS DISCUSSION AND MAIN CONCLUSIONS
The Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) is an extremely
flexible method, its original description merely states the
guidelines for the study and there is no indication or
suggestion of specific tools to use, neither examples of
possible proposals for improvement. So, any tool and several
implementations solutions can be adopted but they must be
aligned with the diagnostic made and the objectives of the
study, only then the implementation of the method will be
successful. So, it is in the operations characterization and the
diagnostic phase that all SMED’s implementation success
relies and a detailed systematic approach should be pursuit.
Using the SMED approach and the proposed implementation
process, it was possible to identify several inefficiencies that
extended the duration of the tool change. Only those that did
not involve investments by the company were implemented
nevertheless the result of the improvement proposals was a
reduction of 28% of the time spent in changeover.
The research results confirms that integrating classical
industrial engineering techniques and classical SMED’s
reducing setup time principles and phases can and should be
done to improve SMED’s implementation results.
For future studies note that many of the problems during a
tool change seems to be due to equipment constraints itself.
However, the emergence of these problems can be avoided if
the designer of the equipment considers the setup problem
during the conception phase. The initial design of the
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equipment is the most important factor in the sustainability of
improvements achieved by applying the method and therefore
the development and construction of a production line should
be thought to enable a tool exchange more efficient and
quick. Although the improvement in the procedures can lead
to significant gains in tool changes, eliminating
inconsistencies and irregularities in the process, those gains
are not definitive. It is necessary to modify the equipment, as
equipment design represents also an important aspect for
improving setup time.
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