SMED

Due to the ongoing industrialization and the shift from a seller’s to a buyer’s market, customers increasingly expect a larger number of different products. In order to meet customer demands flexibly and fairly, batch sizes must be systematically reduced. This usually involves frequent retooling. To keep the entire production system efficient, it is important to keep the setup processes as short as possible. For this purpose, the SMED method “Single Minute Exchange of Die” can be used—waste is reduced through the use of organizational and technical measures, and production time and overall equipment efficiency are increased. The following chapter provides an overview of the method and illustrates it with a practical example.