Packaging Lines Minor & Minor/Major Changeover Time Reduction on a Pharmaceutical Company

Abstract

Every company that wants to be competitive has to implement SMED or changeover reduction in every process that this technique could be applied. The two major difficulties that companies encounters are: Product diversification and Low volume production. The greatest difficulty in a setup operation lies in adjusting the equipment correctly to produce the first good part. Changeovers have become a big topic over the past few years with diversification of products, globalization and economic consumer response. None of this helps the producer, and in fact there is very little over the last five years that has. Manufacturing has had to cope with reducing costs, which inevitably means less resources, shorter runs and more stock-keeping units. This article discusses the improvement of the reduction changeover in a packaging line of a Pharmaceutical Company. The methodology used for the improvement was Lean Six Sigma using the DMAIC tool as a systematic approach. Key Terms - Changeover Time, DMAIC, Lean Six Sigma, Packaging Line.