Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED)

This article is written by Bharathkumar Radha Krishna. He is an Industrial engineer with expertise in lean methodologies and value stream mapping

In today’s manufacturing world, efficiency and productivity are the important keys to success. Every minute counts, which is why every organization is constantly seeking ways to improve or optimize their operations. Imagine a situation where we are being able to switch from one production process to another in less time than it takes to brew our morning coffee! Probably yes without any doubt! And it is achievable with the technique called SMED.

Doesn’t this sound interesting?

Single-Minute Exchange of Die – a powerful methodology designed to transform the way we approach setup times in the processes.

SMED pushes an organization to a situation where it functions with minimal downtime in the changeover loss and maximum output, along with keeping an eye on the cost it allows the organization to quickly respond to customer/market demands. The organization that adapts SMED can create the possibilities of making the agile production lines, that drives growth and innovation.

In this article we shall discuss about the sustainable practices of implementing SMED in an organization and how to elevate the manufacturing game.

What is SMED?

Single-Minute Exchange of Die – a powerful lean methodology designed to transform the way we approach setup times in the processes. SMED is all about reducing the time it takes to switch from one production process to another—ideally to less than 10 minutes. Irrespective of the industry or products creating amazing solutions to reduce/eliminate the long waits in the system.

Purpose

SMED is a structured approach to continuously reduce changeover times of machine and systems in the single minute range. Once we have reduced the changeover time to certain limits, we should not stop there, its a Continuous Improvement Process (CIP).

Imagine that, you are in a race, and every second counts. That’s exactly the mindset behind the SMED. Now, with this mindset we shall build a strategy to bring down our changeover/setup times to less than 10 mins or any minute in that is in single digit.

Description

Changeover time refers to the time between the last good part of order A and the first good part order B. This also takes into account setting up and starting up the machine to meet required quality and production standards. A distinction is made between internal and external changeover time.

Why SMED Matters?

We shall shortly discuss about why it is important and later let’s understand technical terminologies like Internal & External activities.

The successful implementation of SMED has various benefits like increased flexibility, reduced downtime, enhanced quality, cost savings, increased opportunity capacity & most importantly improved employee morale.

Let’s imagine a scenario at a car race pit stop, detailing the situation before and after implementing SMED