What you learn from this blog can change the way your factory floor runs – for the better. In the manufacturing world, most companies sustain really long production runs to avoid long changeovers, but that comes with great risk. Long production runs lead to overproducing and even longer lead times. The increased length of time it takes for your customers to receive the product creates even more problems and customer dissatisfaction, a big no-no.
How do you prevent that scenario from happening?
Reduce Changeovers and Improve Production
“The more inventory a company has,… the less likely they will have what the need.” – Taiichi Ohno, Toyota
Problems that result from long changeover times are never ideal. Considering the end goal as a manufacturer is to deliver on time to customers and keep them coming back for more, a lengthy changeover can cause many issues in production and beyond.
If a long production run is not the answer, then what is? Mingo. Our manufacturing analytics software can be used to reduce changeover time and provide the ability to changeover more frequently and efficiently. The improvement in changeover time will establish more flexibility and the promise of delivering on time to your customers. (There are many other uses for the software, too. See here and here.)
How Can I Reduce Changeovers with Mingo?
There is a feature built into the Mingo software that immediately starts a timer to track how long a changeover takes. The timer can stop automatically when it sees the first good part come off of the line or a worker on the line can manually stop it. There’s even the ability to set up target changeover times for each part a manufacturer has.
This is the part where you’re thinking, “How could there possibly be a tool that can help track and reduce changeovers?”
Well, it’s not too good to be true. Look no further for the answer to your question – Mingo Manufacturing Analytics can track and reduce changeovers, with ease.
(Since we’re already shamelessly plugging a key feature of our software, we might as well go for two. Check out the ‘6 Steps to Implementing IIoT on the Factory Floor Guide’ we recently wrote. It explains the concepts of IIoT and manufacturing analytics, identifies common issues faced by manufacturers, such as changeovers, and helps you learn how to apply the concepts of manufacturing analytics to your own floor to make it more efficient and productive.)
Shameless plug over. Well, sort of because we’re back to talking about Mingo and reducing changeover time in your factory.
The software can easily run a report that identifies changeover times, and specifically, if any were shorter or longer than the ideal time. The report provides you, or any other member of your team, the ability to:
- Compare against the standard
- Evaluate which machines and employees are performing well and which aren’t
In addition to the reports, you can create graphs that look at changeover rates over time. Are changeovers better or worse? Customize your timeline by selecting the specific date ranges and see which changeovers take the longest, how frequently certain ones are occurring, and how long exactly each one is, in graph form.
With indisputable data, you and your team can focus on areas for improvement which in the end, reduces production time and increased flexibility. A win-win.
Instead of avoiding the problem at hand (i.e. running long production times to reduce the number of changeovers), reduce the time that is taken to complete the changeovers (with Mingo, of course!) It’s a simple concept with proven results.
At Mingo, we give you the software and tools necessary to understand where your inefficiencies are, and you take that knowledge and apply it to the problems. It’s time for another shameless plug – see how Mingo can help you, contact us for a free demo.
