Using SMED in Steelworks for business improvement

Understanding the importance of continuous quality and performance improvement within the workplace.

Explaining why continuous quality and performance improvement are important for an organization.

“Without change, there is not improvement, and without improvement there is deterioration”. I still remember when I heard this quote from a Senior Quality Manager at Airbus in Spain. He was speaking about Lean Manufacturing and trying to justify why it is so important nowadays.

We are in the 21st century and the world has changed, and even more after the global crisis in 2008: we do not live in the paradise any more. Before 2008 there was global Market with clients and money for everyone, it was not necessary to be efficient and have low costs to have high net incomes because the sales were high: everybody could have its piece of cake. Nevertheless, nowadays the cake is so small and there are not enough pieces for everybody, so only the fastest and most efficient ones will have a piece of cake, and besides it will be smaller than before!

“Lean” factories have the ability to produce faster with less waste, it is about doing more with less, and it has the potential to radically reduce inventories throughout the supply chain.

“The biggest fish in the river gets that way by never bein' caught” Big Fish (2003). During the last years it has been proved that if a company is not Lean it will not swim in the river very long.

Explaining how the team could be encouraged to adopt continuous improvement techniques.

First of all, it is very important to do a brief presentation about the TQM tools and the Lean Six Sigma methodology to the team. During the presentation the presenter must insist them in engaging and changing their minds (Lean Thinking) to believe in Lean. It is also important to explain that these tools and practices are not objectives in their selves, but just technical solutions to minimize wasteful processes.

Secondly, it is necessary to promote regular meetings (Lean workshops) to follow the actions from the Action Plan and make sure they are being completed. The actions should be exploded assigning responsible and team members to solve them, so everybody feels part of the team: ownership is key to success. This is a good chance to receive ideas from all the team members and also from the shop floor, in order to get the solution from the foundations.

Finally, when closing actions the saving and investments agreed should be reported every time is possible, so the figures can be as accurate as possible to recognize the team efforts and improvements achieved.

From the point of view of the employees, it is important they can understand the reason behind some decisions or changes, so developing a Training Plan in Lean tools is a very good option. Below an example of a training to improve the SMED knowledge in Sections Mill.

1. Introduction of Lean and SMED concepts

- Presentation of the SMED Project and brief introduction of the main Lean concepts.

 2. Lean Mill Changes game

- A lean simulation with paper.

- Identification of waste in the process.

- Revised simulation with Kanban implemented, kaizen and Line Balancing applied to the process.

Key points

- Apply Lean concepts learned to the Mill Changes and Size Changes.

 -Rule: each person represent a crane, they can only use one hand and both people cannot touch each other.

Knowing how to use business improvement tools and techniques to continuously improve the workplace.

Identifying a problem within the team or own area of the organisation.

Problem statement

-       From August to December 2014, the % Mill change time reduction (actual time vs standard time) in Sections Mill was -18.1%. This gap of 18.1% from 0% (business objective target in 2014) represented 2148 minutes last year, with a cost impact of ￡118k in 2014.

-        From January to December 2014, 12183 minutes were involved in the Size changes in Sections Mill, with a cost impact of circa ￡670k.

Project Scope

-        Reduce the duration of the changeovers to improve Utilisation and reduce cost.

Project Objectives

-        Increase the year to date % Mill change time reduction (actual time vs standard time) from -18.1% to 12% (30.1% increase vs year 2014). Standard time = time budget in current SOP’s.

-        Use the Mill change best practices to increase the year to date % Size change time reduction (actual time vs standard time) from 0% to 12% (12% increase vs last year 2014). Standard time = average Size change time last year.

-        Ensure the quality of the changeovers making sure “Getting Section” does not get worse (0% time reduction vs year 2014).

Project Deliverables

-        Minutes involved in the changeovers and Getting Section.

Explaining two possible causes of the problem.

 1)      High variability of Mill Change time depending on the Crew.

2)      There is no procedure or sequence to follow.

Explaining how to address the problem using a recognized business improvement technique and/or tool.

“SMED is a Lean tool for dramatically reducing the time it takes to complete equipment changeovers”.

SMED will be implemented at the same time than 5S and Visual Management. See methodology and structure of meetings using Visual Management below:

The 6 stages of SMED Methodology within the DMAIC cycle:

1st Meeting at 7:30am (Morning Shift) / 7:30pm (Night Shift): Shift Manager with the Team Leaders (5’ Meeting)

-       The Shift Manager tells the Team Leaders on that shift (Mill, Finishing End, Craft, Fettles) when the Mill Change will take place, the product change and what to prepare.

-        The Mill Team Leader takes the Pre-Change Sheet to prepare the Change. This sheet has to be filled and then delivered to the SM in the next “Pre-Change Meeting”.

-       The Team Leader will also take the “initial situation” sheet to make sure the stands will be prepared in position.

On shift 2nd 5’ Meeting: Mill Team Leader with its team

-       The Mill Team Leader goes to his area and informs about the initial positions and manning needed for the Change.

-        The Team Leaders also get feedback about any relevant issue to be forwarded to the Shift Manager.

3rd Meeting: Pre-Change Meeting

-       Pre-Change sheet is collected.

-       The team speaks about any problems during preparation and actions to solve them.

-       The Shift Manager manages resources (cranes...) and workforce available assigning people to the tasks following the standard sequence.

-       He can also use the Magnet Mill Map to understand better the sequence of the Mill Change or think about a plan B.

Mill Change

-       As the Pre-Change sheet states, everything should be prepared for the Change.

-       The Process Technician records the time and sequence of the tasks to analyse it later. If the sequence has not been followed it has to be explained why.

On shift 4th Meeting: Post Mill Change Meeting

-       The Team has to discuss:

1) Incidences during Change (SM includes it in Shift Report).

2) What they did better than the plan and how they achieved it (feedback possible amendments in the sequence and times).

3) What can be done to improve.

The 8 wastes to be eliminated / reduced to speed up the process

KAIZEN: Continuous improvement actions

Gantt chart: Line Balancing Chart of activities

Outlining one method they could use to measure the effectiveness of the proposed improvement tool or technique.

The best method that could be used to measure the effectiveness of SMED is KPI monitoring (KPI = Key Performance Indicator). See example below with dinamic target for Mill Changes:

In order to know if we are choosing the right KPI for our metric we have to make sure they are SMART:

Knowing how to communicate the benefits of the identified improvement for implementation.

Outlining the reason(s) for selecting an identified improvement.

After the implementation of this project we have proved it is possible to improve Utilisation and therefore reduce cost by reducing the duration of the changeovers. Another reason to do this project is Safety, because looking at every single activity involved in the changeovers we can discover hazards and also find safe ways to do the tasks (e.g. how to move the loads without touching them with hands).

Describing how the benefits of the identified improvement could be reported.

A good option to report the benefit of the project is creating a table including baseline, measure unit and targets with all the necessary calculations.

In order to communicate everything related with the project (performance and project plan) it is also very useful to use Visual Management: set all the KPI’s on a board, including the printed presentation of the project.