The Benefit of Frequent Changeover That’s Often Overlooked!

“The airline industry has been closely watching, monitoring, exactly what the rail industry has done.” – Oscar Munoz

The Benefit of Frequent Changeover That’s Often Overlooked!

Lean operating systems recognize that frequent changeovers are any operation’s secret weapon. There are two obvious advantages of frequent changeover: reduced work-in-process inventory and shorter lead-time. However, the one benefit greater than both of these is most often overlooked.

Reduce Work-in-Process Inventory

Airlines compensate for their oversized equipment with frequent changeovers. However, oversized equipment is their problem. Smaller taxi-sized airplanes would provide us all with greater flexibility.

Imagine five Pittsburgh passengers who want to fly to Charlotte, five who want to fly to Los Angeles, and five who want to fly to Sydney.?

If the airline wanted to minimize the frequency of their changeovers, loading the plane, preflight inspections, flight plans, and takeoffs, they would wait until they could get as many passengers as possible who wanted to go to Charlotte, and likewise Los Angeles and Sydney. Given the size of the airplanes, they would have to wait days to fill all the seats. It would require a whole lot of inventory (customers) to get the 15 original passengers to their destinations.?

Instead, the airlines invest in frequent changeovers. They take everyone to Charlotte.?They changeover by unloading and reloading the airplane, performing their preflight inspections and flight plans, and takeoff again. Then in Los Angeles they changeover again and finally fly to Sydney.

They are able to get the original 15 passengers where they want to go along with several others with far less inventory (customers) in the system.

Shorter Lead-Time

Given the size of the planes, the airlines can offer daily flight to almost anywhere because of the frequent changeovers. Customers do not have to wait days to catch a flight to Oklahoma City. They will have to go through Charlotte, Chicago, or Phoenix if they want to get there from Pittsburgh, but they can usually make it the same day.??They will have to connect to another flight – which is the airline’s word for changeover.

The Overlooked Benefit

A large metal casting facility in central Pennsylvania increased the number of mold changes from one per week to two per day. The lean sensei asked his student, “Why is it so good that they are doing so many more changeovers?” The response was the same as most: “To reduce work-in-process inventory and lead-time.”

“No,” the sensei said. “The real benefit is they will continue to get better at changeover.” When you only change the molds once a week, you don’t get much practice. As a matter of fact, you dread it. You forget how to do it. But if it’s done twice a day, you’ll have more practice. And like anything else with practice, you eventually get better.?

Encourage your organization to do more changeover. It is the secret weapon for any operation. And the next time you miss your changeover in Chicago, you can blame the size of the planes.

Assignment: Schedule a changeover in your organization just for the sake of improving the changeover. Watch the reaction of your staff and look for all of the other benefits as well.

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