Certainly food and consumer goods manufacturers who master the economics of product variety, must also master their production assets. Best in class production performance dictates a choreographed response to market demand through effective planning, scheduling, inventory management and delivery.
According to Consulting Engineer’s, “Achieving Effective Change-overs Should Start with Eliminating those that are Unnecessary,” half of change-overs in a typical plant could be eliminated by standardizing products and effective production planning. From the article, here are seven steps to improve change-overs:
- Separate internal from external change-over operations: Begin external operations that can be accomplished without stopping the production line before the system shut-down.
- Convert internal to external change-over tasks: Convert as much of the change-over process as possible to external tasks. Keep the production shut-down to a minimum.
- Create standard change-over tasks: Leave no change-over task to chance. Implement step-by-step procedures and assign roles and responsibilities. Then enforce adherence and compliance.
- Eliminate fasteners: Traditional bolts are inefficient and require too much time to loosen, measure and tighten. In addition, this process introduces too much chance for error. Replace fasteners with quick-change, tool-less selections.
- Utilize jigs and fixtures: The use of fixtures, such as a set-in rail will assure consistent, repeatable set-ups.
- Adopt parallel operations: To the extent possible, eliminate all serial operations. Plan to complete change-over tasks simultaneously to eliminate wasted motion and reduce shut-down time.
- Eliminate adjustments: Eliminate adjustments from the production process. Utilize equipment and controls technology with similar product planning to eliminate as much change-over as possible to keep generating units producing on the line.
For more information, download our white paper, “How to Increase Line Efficiencies by Removing Changeover.”
Posted by We Convey Ideas. 
