An Application of SMED and Jidoka in Lean Production

Rapid developments in information communication technologies have caused radical changes in all areas of society. This change has led to changes in the lifestyles of individuals and of the ways and modes of doing business of enterprises. It is possible for businesses to be able to survive and compete with the right product, at the right place, the lowest cost and meeting customer demands and expectations. Increased competition, customer orientation resulting from changing customer expectations and demands have also changed the manufacturing systems and methods. Businesses have had to use sustainable flexible production methods and techniques which quality-focused, cost-effective and the least wasteful in order to meet customer demand expectations.

Identification of problems, prevention of mistakes, identification and solving of related problem areas and high preparation times are important problems in manufacturing. Automatically detecting faults and stopping the system makes the process more reliable by reducing the need for physical controllers. Reducing the preparation time can save the waste of waiting time. Many methods and techniques are used to remove wastes which are the basic philosophy of lean manufacturing. Jidoka is the detection of faults in the production process and SMED is shortening of preparation times. Jidoka provides an opportunity to automatically detect the system when an abnormal situation occurs for the machine or operators and to stop the production by detecting the fault. Thus, high-quality products and productivity increase are achieved by producing faultless products, increasing quality, preventing the breakdown of machines, tools and equipments and making processes safe. Large productivity increase can be achieved by avoiding waiting wastage with the SMED. The aim of the work is to create high quality products in production and raise awareness about productivity and to make the manufacturing systems safer by shortening waiting times by stopping and detecting the faults in the production system with jidoka and SMED method as a means of lean management and lean manufacturing. In this context, SMED and Jidoka techniques were applied on called ‘’vals ball’’ in flour factory which operating in Turkey ISO top 500 industrial companies. Successful results were obtained regarding the applied jidoka and SMED techniques.