When facing inefficiency in your plant operations, examining the changeover process is crucial. The transition from producing one item to another, known as changeover, can be a major time suck, potentially stretching for hours, days, or more based on the products involved. Many manufacturers overlook the significant time and resources that can be reclaimed by refining their changeover procedures. In the realm of enhancing operational efficiency, platforms such as Nirmalya Enterprise Platform Suite offer a unified solution to streamline changeover processes, ultimately enabling manufacturers to reduce downtime and enhance customer value professionally.

Process Steps for Changeover

Changeovers are essential procedures in manufacturing plants, but they can cause pauses in production and potential errors if not done correctly. The time it takes to complete a changeover can vary greatly depending on the product being manufactured. For example, changing from one type of plastic film to another may only take 10 to 20 minutes, while a changeover in an automotive assembly plant could take multiple days. In discrete manufacturing facilities, transitioning a machine or production line from one product to another typically follows this general framework:

Preparing for Production

Prior to setting up a line or machine for the production of a new product, it is essential to conduct a thorough clean-up to remove any leftover components, materials, and debris that may be obstructing the process. This step is crucial in preventing scrap and potential mechanical problems from arising during production.

Preparation

The preparation phase refers to the duration required to prepare lines or machines for the upcoming production process. This stage may prove to be lengthy, particularly if your changeover process has not been streamlined for optimal efficiency.

Start-up

Once your equipment has been re-started, it is anticipated that you will begin the start-up phase. This phase involves making minor adjustments and fine-tuning to guarantee that production operates smoothly.

Steps to Minimize Changeover Time

Efficient changeovers are essential for meeting customer demand and maximizing profits. To minimize changeover time, businesses must first identify inefficiencies in their current processes. Once identified, they can then develop optimization plans and implement standard operating procedures to sustain best practices. By streamlining changeovers, companies can enhance production efficiency and meet customer demand more effectively. Here’s a quick overview of changeover optimization basics:

Analyse Changeover Process

Before making any changes to your changeover processes, it is important to first analyse the current processes to identify any idle time or inefficient tasks. Take inventory of the materials, parts, and tools needed for each changeover, and observe how well workers execute their tasks. Pay close attention to the time it takes to complete each task during the changeover. Once your analysis is complete, document your findings in a digital format that can be easily shared with team members involved in optimizing the changeover process.

Minimize Changeover Time When Possible

To optimize the changeover process, it is essential to identify tasks that may be taking too long for operators to complete. For example, manual cleaning of industrial mixers in a beverage facility may be a time-consuming task due to hard-to-reach areas within the mixer. Investing in a cleaning-in-place system can help reduce unnecessary downtime. The Single-Minute-Exchange-of-Dies approach, derived from the Toyota Production System, is a common and effective method for speeding up changeovers. By separating tasks into internal and external activities, SMED aims to maximize the number of activities performed externally without stopping production lines. Thorough analysis is required to identify internal activities that can be performed while the lines are running.

Standardize Best Practices

Faster and more efficient changeover processes need to be quickly standardized for optimal performance. New Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) should be comprehensive, detailing parts and tools, safety procedures, machine settings, and cleaning instructions. Digitizing these protocols into a shared platform accessible to all employees is crucial for success. Nirmalya Enterprise Platform suite offers solutions for standardization and procedure updates, capturing real-time data and facilitating collaborative work. This helps reduce changeover time, improve operational availability, and enhance productivity, decrease waste, and increase profitability in the long term.

How Nirmalya Enterprise Platform Minimize Changeover Time

Nirmalya Enterprise Platform Suite empowers businesses to seamlessly integrate people, process, and technology, catering to various needs such as progress, transformation, and overall effectiveness. With a dedication to guiding each step of your journey, regardless of your goals, the platform ensures a fruitful experience. Leveraging Nirmalya Enterprise Platform Suite, manufacturers benefit from minimized downtime as operators can efficiently access crucial information for swift changeovers, enhancing operational efficiency and productivity in a professional and streamlined manner.

Nirmalya Enterprise Platform Suite serves as a central hub for changeover operations, housing all necessary information such as SOPs, operator notes, and video tutorials. This eliminates the need for flipping through paper manuals or seeking clarification from colleagues, as operators can easily access updated protocols with just a few clicks on the platform.

Nirmalya Enterprise Platform suite helps streamline the changeover optimization process by providing supervisors with documented procedures for current changeovers. This saves time and allows for quicker identification and resolution of issues. The platform also allows for easy visualization of line data on a single dashboard, making it simple for supervisors to pinpoint inefficiencies and prioritize lines for optimization.

Nirmalya Enterprise Platform suite empowers shop floor teams to operate with the precision of a seasoned pit crew. With clear instructions, precise timing, and quick access to digital resources, employees can efficiently perform changeovers between production runs. This seamless transition is facilitated by immediate access to digital work instructions and multimedia training materials, ensuring that operators have the necessary information at their fingertips.

To minimize changeover times, it is crucial to provide your workforce with the necessary tools and information to excel in their roles. Nirmalya Enterprise Platform Suite is specifically designed to empower operators to perform efficiently, similar to a well-trained pit crew. With access to real-time data and insights, operators can access digital changeover instructions instantly, ensuring they are always informed of current processes and reducing the chances of errors and safety risks.

Comprehensive production dashboards and Shopfloor dashboards enable supervisors and plant leaders to conduct in-depth analysis of production processes, pinpointing areas for enhancement quickly. Moreover, Nirmalya Enterprise Platform Suite simplifies the process of updating and standardizing changeover procedures, facilitating prompt training for operators as needed. Please reach out to us to learn more about how Nirmalya Enterprise Platform Suite can assist in optimizing your manufacturing process by simplifying changeovers.