AskLDI Case Studies – Food Production SMED

We are a $60 million Food Production business company and our plant that produces meat packed for consumers.

The OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) analysis showed us that changeover of a line was limiting our ability to produce the number of variants we needed. The changeover time was too long and the variation between operators around 80%.

Using the SMED process, our team (who now are Practitioner Certified) worked with the team of operators and followed the SMED process. We used the 8 step approach to make sure we didn’t miss anything and found the move internal to external to be very effective, as an example.

We used a Team Board to visualize our work and it helped us to stay on track. We had our Management visiting every morning to get support and to allow them to be informed. They helped us with the Team Letter and to set up the follow up as well.

Every step was followed even if it was hard to make sure everything got done and it paid off in the end. We have sustained the implementation well.

After completion of the action plans, the machine changeover for the chosen changeover type was reduced with 79% and the variation was +/- 5%. We saved EUR 390000 annually. We are very proud of the outcome.