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(+)+(+) Setup Minimization Improves Line Efficiency
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(+)+(+) The Quick Changeover e-letter
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### December 2003
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Looking for a chance to escape the snow and ice of January? InterPhex, the
International Pharmaceutical Exhibition is going to hold a show and
conference in San Juan Puerto Rico on January 29 & 30. I will be speaking
on changeover on the 30th. For more info, visit www.interphexpuertorico.com

If you attend, be sure to stop and say hello.


SOME THOUGHTS ON...
HENRY FORD, CHANGEOVER AND LEAN

Anyone involved in any kind of manufacturing should read "Today and
Tomorrow" By Henry Ford (Available from Productivity Press at
www.productivityinc.com) Published in 1923, it tells the story of the Model
T and how it was manufactured. Lots of books do this. More importantly,
this book tells the story of why the Model T was manufactured the way it
was. It does so in a very readable manner with plenty of detail for the
technically inclined but not so much as to overwhelm others.
Ford was decades, perhaps even a century ahead of his time. He realized
that the key to reducing costs was to drive out all waste. If looking for
hints on improving changeover, this is not the book. Ford realized that
changeover was a tremendous waste and his philosophy was not to do it. The
Model T was manufactured as a single basic model. Where it was absolutely
necessary to make different parts, for example, for a pickup instead of a
sedan, dedicated machinery was used. No time was lost changing machinery
and, more importantly, Ford realized that when machines were changed from
one part to another they were more likely to turn out defective parts,
especially right after the changeover. Dedicated machines eliminated this.

Ford famously said that his customers could have their cars in any color
they wanted as long as they wanted black. There were several reasons for
this: Black was a relatively inexpensive color, keeping material costs
down. It also dried more quickly than other colors. A single color reduced
inventory control issues for both raw materials and finished cars. Most
importantly though, and not often mentioned, is that a single color
eliminated changeover in the paint department.

So why discuss a product that was never changed in a newsletter devoted to
changeover? There are a lot of things that Ford did that can be applied
today to changeover.

Those who have read this newsletter for a while know that I am a bit nuts
about measurability. If it can't be measured, it can't be controlled. Ford
realized this and was even more fanatic than I am. All costs, for example,
were measured to the hundredth of a cent. Ford felt that if costs were
measured in whole cents, small cost savings would not be realized. A tenth
or even a hundredth of a cent may not seem like much but it adds up,
especially when producing at a wide range of parts, all at high volume.

Ford insisted on high precision and close tolerances in machined parts. To
this end, he bought the Johanssen Company of Sweden, at that time the
world's premier gauge maker. The idea of standardized and interchangeable
parts had been around for a century, since Eli Whitney and the Springfield
Arsenal. Ford improved on existing practices. He believed, correctly, that
the more precision was built into the parts, the less skill would be
required to assemble them. This allowed him to efficiently use lesser
skilled labor.

Ford also insisted on accurate measurement of time and materials that went
into each car.
In other words, measure, measure, measure everything. It is only in this
way that processes can be controlled and opportunities for improvement,
however small, discovered.
Ford is famously credited with the invention of the moving assembly line.
Ford didn't invent it himself. He was smart enough to hire good people such
as Charles Sorenson who probably didn't invent it either. What Sorenson did
do was put it to systematic and widespread use. The normal procedure prior
to this had been for men to walk from car to car doing assembly. Ford saw
this as waste. Wasted effort on the part of the men, who expended energy
moving and wasted time as, when they were walking, they weren't working.
Moving assembly lines allowed more efficient delivery of the materials to
the job, reduced physical effort to the workers and increased their
proportion of productive time. Additionally, by working at a specific pace,
determined by conveyor speed, it made it much easier to synchronize and
balance different assembly operations.

There are a couple lessons in the story of the moving assembly line
applicable to changeover. As I've mentioned before, one good practice when
assessing changeover is to look at how much time workers spend walking. It
can sometimes be an amazing distance. Remember walking is not working even
though the worker is expending their energy. Ford realized this and brought
the task to the worker rather than the worker to the task. Another
important lesson is that nobody knows everything. One of Ford's strengths
was that he realized this, hired the best people he could find and then
turned them loose to develop better methods.

One of my favorite anecdotes from the book is how Ford developed a new and
more efficient method to make plate glass. The glass industry had been
trying for decades to find an economical way to make plate glass in large
quantities and had come to the conclusion that it could not be done. Ford
needed lots of glass for his Model T's and refused to believe them. He took
a young engineer from the drawing room and tasked him with finding a way.
Not knowing it was impossible, the engineer developed a process to do it.
This illustrates the concept of creative ignorance or an unwillingness to
accept the conventional wisdom.

There are lost of other useful concepts we can take from the book regarding
the use of materials that are normally discarded, concepts of quality and a
general fanaticism about efficiency.
It is a terrific book. Read it.


TIP OF THE MONTH...
"IMPROVING CHANGEOVER PERFORMANCE"

There is not a lot written on changeover. Many of the books that are out
there, Shigeo Shingo's "A Revolution in Manufacturing" and Jerry Claunch's
"Set-up Time Reduction", while excellent, are focused more towards heavier
manufacturing. One book that is targeted towards the changeover problem in
packaging and lighter processes is "Improving Changeover Performance" by
R.I. McIntosh, S.J. Culley, A.R. Mileham and G.W. Owen. It available at
Amazon.com ( www.amazon.com ) as are all the other books I mentioned.

This is a valuable addition to any bookshelf.



Best,

John R Henry CPP