At a facility owned by a $165B+ food, agriculture, and animal nutrition leader, changeovers were a problem. Changeover and start-up times on the extrusion and packaging lines were long and highly variable. The same switch could take very different times depending on who ran it.
The problem was compounded because poor parameter control during startup led to yield losses until the line settled. The knowledge of how to do a changeover well lived in the heads of the most experienced operators, undocumented.
We started by shadowing changeovers and start-ups as they happened, sizing the opportunity event by event, and prioritizing the levers that had the biggest impact both in time and tonnage.
We used the SMED method to compress changeovers. That involved separating what must be done with the machine stopped from what could be done while it still runs, moving everything possible into the running window, and improving and standardizing the rest.
The improvements then got documented in SOPs (developed with the operator and SMEs themselves) for each task, product, and equipment combination. Those SOPs were reinforced through daily action plan management and shift-to-shift coordination routines. Lastly, we helped increase capability through parameter databases, operator training, One-Point Lessons, and purpose-built setup tools.
Changeovers were now able to run correctly the first time, the same way on every shift. Every extrusion event now returns 37 minutes and 7.4 tons. Every packaging event, 50 minutes and 6.3 tons.
By looking at what happens during real changeover events we were able to create an improvement plan that addressed what actually consumed time.
Because the standards were built with operators, the new way of doing things became plant knowledge. And the governance layer helped make all of it stick.