Quick Changeover for Operators: The Smed System - Paperback

by Shigeo Shingo (Author)

SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Die) is a method that facilitates equipment or product changeovers in record time--often less than 10 minutes. Developed from, A Revolution in Manufacturing: The SMED System (cat no. PP9903), written for managers, this book is intended for frontline production and assembly associates. It explains why SMED is important and examines the basic stages of SMED. The authors organized the material into chunks of information that can be covered in a series of short sessions. Each chapter includes reflection questions to stimulate group discussion. A Learning Package is also available (catalog no. PP7126).

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Changeover is the process of setting up a production line for a different process or product. Many plants take hours or even days to do a changeover - a major barrier to manufacturing flexibility. Quick Changeover for Operators, based on Shigeo Shingo's SMED system, teaches frontline employees the techniques and approaches that turn hours of changeover time into minutes, even seconds! Now the learning format in the Shopfloor Series makes these powerful techniques accessible to the whole workforce. SMED is short for "Single-Minute Exchange of Die". The "single" here means a single-digit number of minutes - less than ten. The SMED approach is simple and universal. It works in companies all over the world. Although it was first used in (and named for) manufacturing with dies, the basic principles of SMED have been used to reduce setup and turnaround time in all types of manufacturing, assembly, and even service industries, from process and packaging plants to airlines.