Title: Application of SMED to improve overall equipment effectiveness of die change over activities in a forging industry - a case study

Authors: G. Sundaramali; T.K. Kandavel; K. Santhosh Raj; S. Anirudh

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, 632014, Tamil Nadu, India ' School of Mechanical Engineering Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy (SASTRA Deemed to be University), Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu 613-401, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, 632014, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, 632014, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: In globalisation, the manufacturing industry's main aim is to reduce change over time and increase the whole manufacturing process's flexibility. The setup time rapidly increases when the industries aim to produce parts in smaller batches. The decrease in non-value-added time is an immediate approach to increase machine utilisation. This study explores the die change over operation in the forging process and recommends enhancements to expand its productivity by decreasing the die change over setup time utilising the single minute exchange of die (SMED) strategy. Some internal activities are converted into external activities by implementing various techniques such as 5S, the Deming principle and standardisation. Thereby, change over time has been reduced as much as possible. The analysis was done on three different capacities of forging machines. After the implementation of SMED, the change over time was reduced by 43%-45%. As a result, the overall equipment effectiveness has risen to 70% after the SMED implementation.

Keywords: industrial engineering; product variety; Six Sigma; single minute exchange of die; SMED; overall equipment effectiveness; OEE.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2024.140599

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2024 Vol.42 No.4, pp.445 - 458

Received: 22 Feb 2022
Accepted: 30 Jun 2022
Published online: 28 Aug 2024 *

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