SINGLE MINUTE EXCHANGE OF DIES (SMED)-Application in Daily Life!

 

One of the major & highly effective tools in Lean Manufacturing is Single Minute Exchange of Dies of better known as SMED among the industry folks. Shigeo Shingo – the man who introduced the concept of Single Minute Exchange of Dies, to create a system which was able to quickly change the setups/systems for reducing the throughput time. As the name suggests the aim is to literally reduce this setup time to single minutes. Many people try to confuse by the name considering to create quick changeovers that are possible only in a single minute. But rather, the technique aims to reduce the setup time to a single digit number.

The SMED application should not just be constrained to a process having a setup/changeover of more than 10 minutes & then reducing to a single digit value, but rather can further be applied to minimize that time. A process previously having a process time of less than 10 min too can be minimized into a single digit time.

Reducing the time in any process is always favorable but How?

SMED implementation can be done in following steps –

1. Measure total time
2. Separate Internal and External Setup Activities.
3. Convert Internal to External setup activities.
4. Standardize and maintain best practice.

What is Internal/External activities?

Internal – Any activity that is carried out while the process is stopped/halted can be termed as Internal activity.

External – Any activity that can take place simultaneously when the process continues can be termed as External activity.

Thus, SMED focuses on converting Internal activities to External activities to reduce the overall process times either by Eliminating/Combining/Rearranging/Simplifying those activities.

One of the common examples of SMED that is relatable to anyone even without prior technical knowledge is the Pit Stops in Formula 1 Racing. The tires of the F1 race car are changed in merely 2 seconds, owing to the optimization of resources. Though SMED is a highly favorable Lean tool that is applicable in Manufacturing industries, but many of us find it difficult to implement this ideology in our daily life. So, let’s explore how we can do it in our lives-

In our daily life we do a variety of daily chores/activities. Some activities take huge time for completion and some take very less. SMED is a universal tool that can be applied anywhere from the shop floor of manufacturing plants to your kitchen’s cooking top!

So here we have tried to include some real-life examples of implementation of SMED, how it can reduce the output times, which the readers can easily relate to.

1. Activity 1- Changing a LED Bulb/Tube Light at your home  

Following are the steps required to be followed to changing a light bulb (Before SMED)-

Now Converting Internal activity to External (After SMED) -

Testimonial -

Firstly, I turn off the bulb. Then I realize that to reach to the bulb I need chair or table. Then I started searching for the chair. It took more than 12 sec to search for the chair only, because that’s what happens when you start your work without preparation. After setting the up the chair, I stand on the chair and removed the bulb, then I realized that I don’t have new bulb with me to replace. So, I step down from chair to take a new bulb, again I stood on the chair then I placed the bulb in holder. After that I step down from chair and switched on the bulb. Total time was 40 seconds.

After Implementing SMED I have done all the preparatory activities before switching off the light as shown in above table and I also took the bulb for replace with me before standing on the chair. As a result, the time reduced from 40 sec to 16 sec.

      - Group Member

2. Activity 2-

Now time to make some activities even more interesting & fast in the kitchen! We make a variety of different food items/ drinks in the kitchen. Many of them can be optimized further to improve the efficiency of the person working & reducing the total time required. We can surely implement the SMED ideology in some kitchen activities to make certain items faster to beat the summer heat!

So, we have tried using the SMED concepts to improve a juice making process faster for a common household drink- Kokum Juice. Kokum Juice is a Goan summer coolant drink which is perfect in these summer days since it is very refreshing.   

Step 1 – Measure the total time 

Step 2- Classifying the activities into Internal & External (Before SMED)-

Step 3- Converting Internal to External activities

As we observe from above values the creation of mixture is the major activity & the most time-consuming activity is the soaking of the dry kokum.

Thus, to reduce the time we can use a refrigerated concentrated Kokum liquid which is easily available in the market. We need to add water in 3:1 ratio to the concentrate.

(After SMED) -

Step 4- Standardize & Sustain the best practice –

As we observe from above values the creation of mixture is the major activity & the most time-consuming activity is the soaking of the dry kokum. We can significantly reduce the time required, by using a ready to use frozen concentrate easily available in the market, eliminating the entire tedious & time-consuming process of drying, soaking Kokum & cooking the mixture.  

We have tried to experiment with some ideas. We would love to hear from you on more ideas about how other activities too can be improved at your home/workplace in the comment’s section below!    

This article is compiled by Tejas Bakale, Omkar Borate, Amegh Deshmukh, Chinmay Kulkarni & Sujit Sirmanwar – Industrial Engineering students of Vishwakarma Institute of Technology under the guidance of Prof. Mr Gajanan Gambhire as a part of World Class Manufacturing course assignment. The article is a part of the initiative taken by our Institute for online learning during the uncertain times of Lockdown resulting due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Thus, we have tried to experiment with different activities at our homes to learn the concept of SMED first hand, hence our experiments may not align completely with SMED but we have tried to optimize steps & reduce the throughput time for some activities. Thus, we would be grateful if you give your valuable feedback for this article.