Many companies try to reduce setup time utilizing teams of
employees. Much of our work involves training and working with these teams to
make setup time reduction a reality. The problem is teams typically take a long
time to get substantial improvements and they don't sustain the effort long
enough to achieve 90% reductions in setup time. Usually the setup time reduction
effort simply fades away with little more than 50% reductions in setup on some
machines. Most companies need rapid setups which equates to more than a 90%
reduction in setup time on many machines. Because of this, we knew there was a
need for a different approach to reducing setup time.
We have developed the FasTrack 8 step method. We analyze
your current setup, provide the recommended improvements, get buy in from
employees and fully implement the improvement. You, the customer, are in control
every step of the way. You are provided complete documentation of
recommendations and results to expect and must approve before implementation. If
you choose, Claunch & Associates, Inc. can make the recommendations and you
can have your employees implement.
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We conduct an assessment to determine the minimum
amount of improvement that is possible in your setup
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We document your current setup
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We analyze your current setup and develop our
recommended improvements.
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We review our recommended improvements, including
costs to implement, with management.
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We review our recommended improvements with your shop
experts. (i.e. supervision, setup experts, operators, and engineers.)
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Once you give the go ahead, we implement the
improvements and verify the results.
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We determine the most productive sequence of setup
steps and document the new setup procedure.
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We train all applicable employees in the new setup
procedure.
Typically these 8 steps break down into three phases.
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We come to your facility to conduct an
assessment to determine the minimum amount of improvement that is possible
in your setups. First we examine your current setup documentation,
historical data, interview your changeover experts. Then we video tape a
normal setup completed by your best setup expert including start up.
Finally, we meet with management to present our initial determination of the
amount of improvement we believe is possible.
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We document your current setup.
Utilizing the video tape we took, we now identify the elements of your
current setup, and load it into our setup time reduction software.
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We analyze your current setup and document our
recommended improvements. Every element of your current setup and
startup is examined to determine what low cost improvements can be made,
including a bill of materials to be purchased and the specific amount of
time that can be reduced.
Phase 1 Objective: Identify current setup elements
and recommended improvements.
Phase 1 Deliverables:
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We review our recommended improvements,
including costs to implement, with management. Typically the review
with management is involved more with the resulting reduction in setup time
and the cost to implement. Once you give the go ahead, we then conduct a
review with the setup experts.
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We review our recommended improvements with your
shop experts. (i.e. supervision, setup experts, operators, engineers and
management.) This review session is very detailed and is
supported with our setup documentation, implementation planner, video tape,
pictures of improvement and catalogs of purchased items.
Phase 2 Objective: Review sessions wherein each
recommendation is presented for buy in and improvement as necessary.
Phase 2 Deliverables:
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Meeting with management and supervision.
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Meeting with operators and mechanics.
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Final implementation planner including all
improvements, costs and time reduced.
Our guarantee: "If Claunch & Associates, Inc.
can not identify improvements that result in at least a 50% reduction in setup
time, based on the setup they document at your facility, you pay nothing for
their services, no matter how much time or costs they have incurred on your
behalf."
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Once you give the go ahead, we implement the
improvements and verify the results. We order all necessary
materials, fabricate and implement all the improvements approved in step 5.
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We determine the most productive sequence of
setup steps and document the new setup procedure. Once all
improvements are implemented, we work on the sequence of the remaining
changeover steps and develop a setup manual for your plant. We determine
what the most efficient sequence is and layout the manual in that order,
including pictures and descriptions of each step, and a checklist of the
changeover steps.
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We train all applicable employees in the new
setup procedure. Every employee who would do a setup is trained by
Claunch & Associates in the improved method. Both the trainer and the
employee must sign off that they are capable of doing a setup on their own.
Phase 3 Objective: Provide a turnkey
implementation.
Phase 3 Deliverables:
SPECIAL BONUS: Baseline Settings Manual
We at Claunch & Associates, Inc. have found that often
after we leave, adjustments are sometimes made by employees that reverse the
improvements. Because of this, we will include a baseline settings manual for
each machine we implement the setup time reduction. This manual will provide all
the settings that we determine are critical to a reliable startup. In the event
of a poor start up, your employees can go back to this manual and determine what
settings have been changed and reset those to the proper setting. Ensuring that
all employees that may adjust settings utilizing the information in this manual
will ensure you always have Rapid setups and Reliable startups.
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