Application of the single minute exchange of die

Introduction

The SMED system was born out of the need to achieve JIT (Just in time) production, one of the cornerstones of the Toyota manufacturing system and was developed to shorten machine setup times, trying to make smaller batches.

Contrary to traditional thoughts, the Japanese engineer Shigeo Shingo pointed out that traditionally and wrongly, the policies of the companies in exchange for tooling, have been directed towards improving the skill of the operators and few have carried out strategies to improve their own exchange method.

The success of this system began at Toyota, achieving a reduction in the time of die changes from a period of one hour and forty minutes to three minutes.

Its need arises when the market demands a greater variety of product and the manufacturing batches must be smaller; In this case, to maintain an adequate level of competitiveness, either the changeover time is reduced or large batches continue to be made and the size of the finished product warehouses is increased, with the consequent increase in costs. This technique is widely validated and its implementation is fast and highly effective in most machines and industrial facilities.

Development

Currently, most medium and large companies in our country apply methodologies to increase their productivity. In order to implement tools to improve production, it is essential to define the concept of productivity.

Productivity: is the relationship between Production and Inputs.

Graphing these elements and relating them to the Productivity concept, we will have to:

Productivity - SMED

Currently there are different methods and tools that provide us with endless notable benefits for companies, but for each tool to provide the expected benefits, it must be applied in the correct way, in a simple and practical way, following all the specifications that it implies and carrying out all the parts of the application process, and of course choosing the correct tool for the problem we want to address.

It is very important to know that to select the tool that we will use we must identify the critical part of the process, that is, the part of the process that is causing us a problem or in which the main problem is being carried out, that is why They must carry out the flow diagrams of the different processes to attack the company, as well as carry out an investigation of the consequences that this problem is bringing us and put in place an implementation plan for the tool that can best correct the problem..

Continuous improvement means: improving in a standardized and systematic way the levels of quality and productivity, reducing costs and response times, optimizing the indicators of consumer or customer satisfaction. In order to improve the returns on the investment made and the collaboration of the company within the market.

What is SMED?

The word SMED is the acronym for Single-Minute Exchange of Die: single digit digit tool change. This concept introduces the idea that in general any machine change or process initialization should last no more than 10 minutes, hence the phrase single minute.

Here the bases of the SMED methodology are described, which through the method of raising awareness of the personnel, show how they can contribute to improving productivity, quality and safety in daily work.

Tool change is understood to be the time elapsed from the manufacture of the last valid part in a series to obtaining the first correct part in the next series; not only the time of the change and physical adjustments of the machinery.

To be successful in implementing the SMED methodology, it is important to mention the phases that constitute it:

1. Preliminary stage. Here we must analyze the process in detail to know each of the stages that compose it, as well as carry out a time study to measure the time required by a qualified operator to perform a task. At this stage the internal preparations are not differentiated from the external ones.

2. First Stage. Separation of internal preparations from external ones

a) Internal Preparation: Are those preparations that are made at the time the machine is stopped.

b) External Preparation: they are those preparations that are made at the time the machine is operating.

3. Second Stage: Convert internal preparation to external. This stage is essential to achieve a reduction in machine setup times.

4. Third Stage: Perfecting the aspects of the preparation operation. This means that we must implement methodologies that will help us improve the process, such as standardizing operations.

Conclusions

Implementing the SMED methodology in a production process brings us great benefits since the reduction of time dedicated to the adjustment of the machinery is achieved, so that the adjustments or tooling changes are somewhat quick or, where appropriate, instantaneous. This methodology is very important since it allows our process to be standardized when making such changes or adjustments, as well as helping us to increase the productivity of each of the operations that lead to the reduction of production costs, increased responsiveness to changes in production schedule, improves product quality and why not say timely delivery of the product.