<p>This study will chart the changeover work, with a standpoint in the SMED-theory, at the company Peter Ernst AB in Värnamo. They are suppliers in plastic moulding industry and delivers to amongst other Saab in Trollhättan and Scania. The company are in a very competitive market, and they have to make manufacturing more efficient and rationalise their costs to be able to compete. A big problem, which the company has identified, is their long changeovers. It brings higher costs, a more stressful work climate and holds back the company from becoming more efficient.</p><p>Field studies will be conducted on the changeover, which will be observed and filmed. The filming provides the possibility to go back and look at the changeovers again. The objective of the study is to map the changeover work, and also make clear suggestions for improvements.</p><p>To give the suggestions of improvements more depth they will be discussed with the changeover workers. All the machines in the study are plastic moulding machines and are CNC-guided.</p><p>Our study will result in a mapping of the changeover work, and some suggestions for improvements of the tool carrier and new work routine.</p>

<p>To maintain production in high salaries countries and strength in competition against other companies, it is today more important than ever to maximize production, offer a wide spectra of products and be able to deliver on the customers desire of shorter and shorter delivery time. Flexible production and short time spent on die changes is vital to achieve these desires. The interest for die changeover time reduction grew in the same pace as the demand for increased product variety grew. SMED as a method of reducing time spent on die changeovers were developed in between 1950-1970, by the Japanese Shigeo Shingo.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis work has been to investigate the result of SMED in a die casting facility, and compare the result from it with the result considering time spent on die changeovers when investing in new equipment. The goal is to implement a thorough investigation by using the SMED method at Tenhults Pressgjuteri AB and make a brochure that have to be simple to understand, in purpose to draw interest to the advantages of using SMED as a method.</p><p>Commissioned by the Swedish foundry association Swecast, the work has been carried out by studying die changeovers at Tenhults Pressgjuteri AB, where filming and interviews with the operators have been included in the analysis. Meetings have been held with Husqvarna AB about their expected earnings on there new investment.</p><p>The work with analyzing die changeovers resulted in following suggestions of improvement:</p><p>• Manuals of adjustments to the sprayer</p><p>• Rapid couplings to the warmth- and cooling hoses</p><p>• Eliminating the work of adjustment when changing the ladle</p><p>• Introduced a combined spanner- torque wrench</p><p>• Manuals to the mechanical lock</p><p>The total theoretical improvement of these measures, along with routines for making outside exchange of die before the machine was shut downed, became a reduction of time spent on die changeover with 60%, from 167 minutes to 66 minutes. That corresponds to a capacity/possible sale increase with 3030 SEK/changeover.</p><p>The conclusion of this survey is that investing in new equipment is not the best way to gain capacity. Better results can be made just by working with die changeovers on the present machines. If a company has worked with reducing time spent on die changeovers before, and is about to replace an old machine, it could be a cause to invest in new technological details to make the work with die changeovers less complicated.</p>

At ABB’s high voltage cable factory in Karlskrona, there is a line production that is regarded as a bottleneck. The production rate at this workplace as well as the large variations of setups has created two major problems. The first problem is that it has become difficult for the planning department to determine the lead times for delivery to the customers. The other problem is that the long setup times has made this line production the bottleneck of the whole production. The factory at ABB HVC includes a number of line productions, where each line has their own purpose and value adding processes. The armoring line AR50 that this project has the focus to improve has the last value adding processes for the factory’s main product. The factory’s main product is the Cross-Linked Polyethylene cable, shortened XLPE. There are several different advantages with the XLPE-cable system. First of all they are maintenance-free and environmentally friendly. The main reason that the XLPE-cable is environmentally friendly is because it have low electrical losses. Since the submarine cables are underground the cables are invisible and not effected by weather conditions. This project implements the method SMED as well as various methods from the LEAN transcript in order to reduce the setup times and create a more stable and effficient production. An Ishikawa diagram were used in order to determine the root causes of the problems. Later both technical and management solutions were proposed and implemented. The project has concluded impressive results regarding setup time reduction and annual cost savings. It also enlightens the large potential for further improvement. This project will be continued during the year of 2014 in order to implement the proposed solutions. The future improvements are not just technical but also related to management and group dynamics.

To maintain production in high salaries countries and strength in competition against other companies, it is today more important than ever to maximize production, offer a wide spectra of products and be able to deliver on the customers desire of shorter and shorter delivery time. Flexible production and short time spent on die changes is vital to achieve these desires. The interest for die changeover time reduction grew in the same pace as the demand for increased product variety grew. SMED as a method of reducing time spent on die changeovers were developed in between 1950-1970, by the Japanese Shigeo Shingo. The purpose of this thesis work has been to investigate the result of SMED in a die casting facility, and compare the result from it with the result considering time spent on die changeovers when investing in new equipment. The goal is to implement a thorough investigation by using the SMED method at Tenhults Pressgjuteri AB and make a brochure that have to be simple to understand, in purpose to draw interest to the advantages of using SMED as a method. Commissioned by the Swedish foundry association Swecast, the work has been carried out by studying die changeovers at Tenhults Pressgjuteri AB, where filming and interviews with the operators have been included in the analysis. Meetings have been held with Husqvarna AB about their expected earnings on there new investment. The work with analyzing die changeovers resulted in following suggestions of improvement: • Manuals of adjustments to the sprayer • Rapid couplings to the warmth- and cooling hoses • Eliminating the work of adjustment when changing the ladle • Introduced a combined spanner- torque wrench • Manuals to the mechanical lock The total theoretical improvement of these measures, along with routines for making outside exchange of die before the machine was shut downed, became a reduction of time spent on die changeover with 60%, from 167 minutes to 66 minutes. That corresponds to a capacity/possible sale increase with 3030 SEK/changeover. The conclusion of this survey is that investing in new equipment is not the best way to gain capacity. Better results can be made just by working with die changeovers on the present machines. If a company has worked with reducing time spent on die changeovers before, and is about to replace an old machine, it could be a cause to invest in new technological details to make the work with die changeovers less complicated.

Denna fallstudie har utfört på Klöfver AB och syftet med studien är att öka förståelsen hur ett producerande företag kan effektivisera värdeflödet inom sina produktionsprocesser. Först kartlades det nuvarande läget i produktionen på företaget. Med utgångspunkt från en värdeflödesanalys kunde sedan värdeskapande och icke värdeskapande aktivitet identifieras. De icke värdeskapande aktiviteterna kategoriserades som olika typer av slöserier. Även övriga observationer visade att företaget jobbar på ett ostrukturerat sätt och att det förekommer en stökig miljö på företaget. I studiens slut genereras förbättringsförslag som grundar sig i studiens resultat och det beskrivs hur dessa förbättringsförslag kommer att påverka företaget. Undersökningsfrågan kommer att besvaras med hjälp av generella slutsatser som studien genererat.

AB Gustaf Kährs grundades 1857 i Nybro och 1947 blev Kährs först med att få patent på ett trägolv. Enligt Kährs är deras affärsidé att erbjuda miljövänliga och högkvalitativa trägolv för privata, offentliga och kommersiella miljöer. Under de senare åren har marknaden för robustare och mer formgivna trägolv vuxit. Därför har Kährs på kort tid byggt upp en ny linje för designprodukter. Det finns ett behov av att utvärdera och analysera linjen ur ett produktionstekniskt perspektiv med hjälp av olika LEAN verktyg. Målet med arbetet är att identifiera flaskhalsar och skapa förslag till en organiserad arbetsplats runt designlinjen. Information har samlats in genom samtal med personal och mätningar. Detta har resulterat i förslag rörande layouten av designlinjen och förslag på hur Kährs kan förbättra logistiken runt linjen.

The growing competition for manufacturing companies is placing increased demand on fulfilling customer requirements with as high quality as possible as quick as possible. To meet the tougher competition, it is common that companies implement various tools and methods such as Lean Manufacturing, Continuous Improvement and Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED). Implementing these helps to reduce the risk of production failures while increasing efficiency thus increasing profit.  This thesis brings up the implementation of a tool within Lean Manufacturing called SMED to a production line with the aim to increase the machine availability through reduction of the equipment changeover.  The thesis is a qualitative case study where the authors use interviews, observation and time measurement to gather relevant data which are then analysed for the goal of this thesis which is to reduce the complete equipment changeover time of the production line in Ämnesverkstaden. All the relevant data which was collected resulted in an implementation of a SMED mind-set and an instruction manual with a complementary list of necessary changes.  The authors believe that this study can provide useful information and knowledge when introducing SMED as well as an approach the operators can use in the future to help reduce the equipment changeover.

This article examines the problem of an increase in product returns for a company that produces plastic films for flexible packaging. Among the factors that have resulted in the increase of returned products are defects in the films caused by the poor manipulation of materials and, above all, the hard point in the coils caused by excessive extruder preparation time, causing the extrusion head to overheat as well as uneven extrusion. Extrusion is a key process in the production of plastic materials as it transforms polypropylene and additives into plastic sheets. The delay in the preparation time caused by machine operators leads to the overheating of the extrusion head and, therefore, defective products that are ultimately returned to the company by customers. In order to confront this problem, a proposal was developed using the SMED tool of Lean Manufacturing in order to reduce the preparation time of the extruder and to increase the productivity of the company. For the validation of the proposal, we simulated the system to determine the resulting reduction in extruder preparation time.

El presente proyecto está enfocado en mejorar la productividad de una empresa manufacturera de neumáticos, específicamente la línea de producción de neumáticos radiales, con el fin de poder satisfacer la demanda creciente y no perder valor con sus clientes. Para cumplir con este objetivo, se aplica un modelo basado en los principios de herramientas de Manufactura Esbelta en este trabajo, el cual está estructurado en cinco capítulos. El primer capítulo brinda un marco teórico de las herramientas, técnicas y lineamientos a seguir, basado en el estado del arte, que brinde el know how necesario para poder aplicar correctamente las técnicas y herramientas de Manufactura Esbelta. El capítulo dos nos muestra un diagnóstico general de la empresa, detallando el problema principal que presenta, el impacto en la rentabilidad que este tiene y sus causas. El tercer capítulo se centra en la aplicación de las metodologías explicadas, determinando el proceso restrictivo y aumentando su capacidad (herramientas de Manufactura Esbelta). Tras ello, en el capítulo cuatro, se realiza la validación de la implementación, ejecutado mediante un plan piloto, el cual evidencia una mejora significativa en la productividad de la línea. Luego, en el capítulo cinco, se presenta la medición de los impactos, siendo estos sociales, ambientales, organizacionales, entre otros, que puedan repercutir tras la implementación de las herramientas. Finalmente, se determinan las conclusiones y recomendaciones que se obtienen tras el desarrollo de todo el proyecto. / This project is focused on improving the productivity of a tire manufacturing company, specifically the radial tires line, in order to satisfy the demand and not lose value with customers. To accomplish this objective, a model based on the principles of Lean Manufacturing tools is applied in this assignment, which is structured in five chapters. The first chapter provides a theoretical framework of the tools, techniques and guidelines to follow, based on the state of the art, which provides the necessary knowledge to be able to correctly apply the techniques and tools of Lean Manufacturing. Chapter two shows a general diagnosis of the company, showing the main problem of it, the impact on the profitability that it has and its causes. The third chapter focuses on the application of the methodologies explained yet, defining the restrictive process and increasing its capacity (Lean Manufacturing tools). After that, in chapter four, validation of the implementation is carried out, executed through a pilot plan, which evidences a significant improvement in the line’s productivity. Then, in chapter five, the measurement of impacts is showed, as social, environmental, organizational, among others, that can impact through the implementation of the tools. Finally, conclusions and recommendations that derive from the development of the entire project are determined. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / At present, companies in the Peruvian plastic sector have an average capacity utilization indicator of 71.45%. However, in Peru many SMEs are with 50% well below this indicator. After a study performed in a representative company of the Peruvian plastic sector, the causes of low efficiency in resource utilization were determined through a problems tree and a Pareto analysis. These causes are failures, reprocesses and Setup times in the extrusion machines, taking around 1008 h a year to solve these problems. This article proposes a model to improve efficiency, integrating Lean Manufacturing tools such as 5s, SMED, and autonomous maintenance. The first one was used as a support tool, while SMED was used to reduce the configuration time and autonomous maintenance to reduce the failures number and the reprocesses number. The model was validated through a case study, obtaining as results the reduction of the setup time by 50%, breakdowns by 50% and reprocesses by 60%.