Injection Molding / Metal Fabrication / CNC Machine Shop
Industry:
ALL manufacturing operations that use multiple dies or molds on the same machine
Mission:
Increase available time, increase business, and reduce cost
Challenge:
As an example,
- A 1500-ton injection molding press is used to produce 3 different parts (3 different molds)
- The weekly requirements for each part are produced in 40-hour runs each
- The die-change over is about 3 hours each
- To keep up with the requirements, the machine is run 6 or 7 days a week and the factory carries high inventories of parts
Solution:
- SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies)
- Convert “Internal” work to “External” work
- Standardize
- 5S
- The die change over for a 1500-ton press was reduced to 20 minutes
- SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies)
Result:
- Eliminate overtime. Run production in 5 days
- Run the molds more frequently. Reduce inventory
- $$$