Thread by @joshuamschultz

SMED is a variation of a technique that can cut days and hours from long processes.

Small businesses don't have extra time.

So running lean is a must.

SMED carries some very important lessons used by businesses to reduce times by 90%+

A history, and lesson breakdown:

Ideas around reducing process time came of age during the industrial revolution when manufacturers were standardizing and measuring.

Frederick Taylor was the first to document his ideas in 1911.

Motion Studies were also made popular at this time.

In 1915, Henry Ford's factories were experimenting with reducing a specific process, die setup.

It could take 8 - 48 hours at a time to switch a die in a stamping machine.

They published some of their ideas in 1915

While Ford was able to improve Quick Changeovers on a short-term basis, his factories were not adaptable.

When they finally switched from the Model T in 1927, the changeover halted the factory for 6 months!

A quick sidebar on why this process took so long.

Whenever a die needed switching (to produce a different part on the machine).

1. A Crane was used to lower the die
2. It was set as close as they could get with the crane
3. It was then adjusted manually by men with leverage tools
4. Parts were produced as samples
5. Based on those errors, adjustments were made to positioning
6 repeat until perfect

In 1945, Taiichi Ohno, manager of Toyota machine shops, had seen quick die changes in the US.

He started experimenting, using ideas from the US World War 2 program - Training Within Industry (TWI). This was a program to help factories produce for the wartime effort.

TWI used ECRS

Eliminate
Combine
Rearrange
Simplify

This process was the core of process time reduction.

This is an excellent start for small businesses even today, and I'll cover some questions and a checklist later to implement.

Shigeo Shingo made the Toyota methods popular in the US, an individual who was fired from Toyota from sharing their methodologies without permission.

In the US he heavily promoted the SMED, or Single Minute Exchange of Die.

So how did they reduce from 12 hours to <9 minutes?

His results tended to be a 40x time reduction in these long processes for US plants.

Shingo developed an 8 step process, expanded from the 4 steps from TWI..

1. Separate Internal and External
2. Convert Internal to External
3. Standardize function over shape
4. Use functional clamps, or eliminate fasteners
5. Use intermediate jigs
6. Adapt Parallel ops
7. Eliminate Adjustments
8. Mechanization

Ok, here is how you can use this!

Process for Massive Reduction in process times for Small Business

1. Map out what is currently happening. Process Mapping by Dan Madison is my favorite here.

You need to write down:
a. The process name
b. What is happening
c. Why you are doing it
d. The time it takes

2. Collect Additional Information on each step.

This will be used to generate ideas for alternatives later.

a. How many errors does this step generate?
b. Why?
c. Where are the handoffs (material, information, etc)

3. Setup a meeting by all the stakeholders of the process and ask questions to make people start to think.

a. Why are we doing this? Can we eliminate the cause that generated this step?
b. Can this be automated?
c. Is there an alternative way to do this step?

d. Can this be part of another step?
e. Can this be outsourced (internally or externally)?
f. Can we combine the doer?
g. Have we elongated the step due to many edge cases? Do we need to?
h. How would a newbie look at this? What would they think?
I. How do others do this?

J. Do we have to do things in this order?
K. What would we do, if we were forced to do this in 1/10th the time? What would we skip?

Armed with this and the steps, you are now ready to start improving.

4. Focus efforts on eliminating or reducing non value activities within each step.

a. people and machines moving (see step 6 for ideas on this.)
b. checks and double-checks
c. storage and wait
d. duplicated efforts
etc

5. Clean up

a. get rid of what steps you don't need
b. simplify steps that have become overdone
c. outsource steps you don't need to do internally
d. steps that can't fit into the above, see if you can reorganize them so they do

6. Create tools, jigs, rigs, software, and guides to do steps better, more accurately, automatically, or faster.

a. look at your trucks, factories, & tools
b. look at your setup, layout, industrial design
c. look at things you dont need judgment for

Where are opportunities to create "helps"?

Can you add additional tools to your truck to help with onsite jobs?

Can you create software to automate information saving and retrieval?

Can you set up your floor in a different way for streamlined movement or step combination?

Can you add measurement devices and controls to information, material, or tools to reduce the number of adjustments and checks needed?

Can you hire a firm to prep or setup components and then ship to you for use when needed?

Can you automate measurement and information sharing with vendors and customers?

Can you move processes forward to reduce what is needed at the time of process?

What are the things you could make or build, that would make life easier?

7. Standarize whatever possible.

You don't want to do this for externally facing things that customers will see...

... but for internal... standardize!

This will lower time, training, mistakes.

8. Label each remaining step as internal or external.

Internal must be done at time of process, external does not.

I will cover concrete examples of this in just a bit!

Remove all external steps and move them outside of the process.

9. Where possible, run multiple steps at one time.

I have seen step 5 used to make this step possible.

Ie. a HIAB truck that has tools built so that unloading can be done at the same time as lifting and install.

10. Now organize your internal steps together and see your process reduction time!

Other benefits:
a. reduction in errors
b. reduction in wasted time
c. scalability to non-trained people
d. reduction in space needed
e. lower costs
f. simpler operation
g. increased capacity

Example:

At one of my supply chain companies, we had a customer who required documentation, packaging, inspection, and review - all at the time of shipment.

Their shipment quantities often changed the day of the shipment.

We were measured with +/- 1 day for on-time delivery.

This means that we had to pack parts the day we shipped. One package, with the certs & docs & checks took 15 - 20 minutes.

This meant 2-4 hours per day for just this customer's shipments!

An issue for a company of 8!

Here are some of the changes that brought this to 3 min.

1. We noticed that their quantities were multiples of 25. We standardized bag quantities to 25/bg to make pulling shipments much faster.

2. We kept forms 90% filled out at all times.

3. We created an automated form filler for each part/lot combo that was driving by our ERP. We push a button, we get a form 90% done.

4. We moved all parts of the process that didn't need to be done, to days earlier - when people had time.

5. We used past shipment and other data to predict when orders would be needed, and then pre-empted prep by a day or so.

6. We created a specialized material flow for inspections done at time of shipment rather than receipt.

7. We ran part pulls & inspections at the same time

You can see some principles from the above steps here including:
1. Parallel ops
2. step elimination
3. automation
4. floor layout design
5. process layout design
6. combining steps
7. elimination of non-value steps
8. standardization

If you find this interesting and want help conceptualizing or implementing, let me know!

If you find this type of writeup helpful, I am launching a newsletter soon with deep dives on specific small business operations topics along with case studies on how small businesses have used them.

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