Reduction of change overtime applying SMED under lean manufacturing: a case study

Abstract

The basic idea behind lean manufacturing is to eliminate waste, which does not add value to the end product. Any garments industry can maximize their profit margin by reducing all types of wastes. Lean manufacturing is one of those activities that focus on cost reduction by eliminating non-value added activities. This thesis work addresses the application of lean manufacturing philosophy to the mass production sector with a focus on sewing section of the garments industry. The core idea behind the thesis work was to introduce lean manufacturing concept in RMG sector of Bangladesh. In this concern, Single Minute Exchange of Die tools and techniques have been applied. The Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) is one of the important lean tools to reduce waste and improve flexibility in manufacturing processes allowing lot size reduction and manufacturing flow improvements. SMED reduces the non-productive time by streamlining and standardizing the operations for exchange tools, using simple techniques and easy applications. It provides a rapid and efficient way of converting a manufacturing process from running the current product to running the next product. This rapid changeover is the key to reduce production lot sizes and thereby improving flow. There has a great applicability of SMED method in RMG sector. Several implementations have proven that the SMED method really works in practice and reductions of changeover time. As RMG sector is a large industrial sector in Bangladesh; change over time reduction can play a vital role for improving productivity as well as economic development for the country. It is found that a significant amount of time per style, per month can be minimized by applying this method. The implementation lean manufacturing has enabled reduction in setup time, unnecessary task elimination, quality rework reduction, material and information flow time reduction through company's internal resources reorganizations without the need for significant investment.