Setup Time Reduction with SMED in a Corrugated Box Plant

The Single-Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) methodology proved to be an effective approach for reducing setup times on a bottleneck 66” Koppers rotary die-cutter machine center in a corrugated box plant. Root cause analysis techniques, such as a check sheet and control charts, aided the analysis. The supervisor and work crew, consisting of both the operator and setup person, played an integral role in reducing setup times by consenting to being videotaped during a typical setup and then breaking down the video to distinguish internal versus external steps. By converting many internal steps to external steps, average setup times were reduced from 55 minutes to 32 minutes, a 42% improvement.