Quick Changeover for Operators: The SMED System book from Improvement Tools.com
Quick Changeover for Operators: The SMED System book
Quick Changeover for Operators: The SMED System, a book by Shigeo Shingo, is available from
Improvement Tools.com .
The knowledge contained in this book can make workplace more productive and the job simpler.
It is about how to do equipment or product changeovers faster, often in less than 10 minutes. The method that can be learnt here is called SMED, short for ‘Single-Minute Exchange of Die’ (the ‘single’ here means a single-digit number of minutes).
Quick Changeover for Operators was developed from a longer book, A Revolution in Manufacturing: The SMED System, written for managers.
The frontline production and assembly associates are the ones who will be most involved in implementing the SMED approach and also the ones who can benefit from it.
This book specifically gives the SMED basics in a straightforward and interesting format. Once these basics are understood, the reader will be able to see how they might apply to a specific situation at work.
This book presents an overview of the reasons why SMED is important for companies and employees, sets out the three basic stages of SMED and then devotes a separate chapter to each of these stages.
The first chapter of the book is like an owner's manual that tells the reader how to get the most out of the reading time by using the margin assists, summaries and other features of the book to help pull out exactly what the reader needs.
An effective way to use this book is to read and discuss it with other employees. The book is deliberately planned this way - by organising the book into chunks of information that can be covered in a series of short session or in one longer event. (Most chapters can be covered in a single session; Chapter 5 and 6 contain a lot of samples and each should probably be covered in two sessions.)
Each chapter includes reflection questions to stimulate group discussion. A Learning Package is also available, which includes a leader's guide, overhead transparencies to summarise major points and colour slides showing examples of SMED applications in different kinds of companies.
So what is SMED?
Quick changeovers are critical for any company wanting to practice just-in-time or one-piece flow manufacturing, since models may be rapidly switched and unneeded inventory may be avoided.
SMED reduces difficult, time-consuming and wasteful activities in a company, which ultimately supports the company's competitiveness and makes work easier. The SMED system is an effective approach for shortening changeover time.
The SMED approach is actually quite simple and universal. Companies all over the world practice it. First used in (and named for) manufacturing with dies, SMED's basic principles have helped reduce setup and turnaround time in all types of manufacturing, assembly, and even service industries.
SMED is really about observing, thinking and acting on changeover.
15-Aug-2008