A study of a management supported single minute exchange of die (SMED) program for the flexible packaging industry

The principle objective of this study was to quantify the effectiveness of a management supported process improvement program versus a non-management supported program. The test took two plants with the same machine and a similar job mix were chosen to implement a common process improvement program in the exact same way with the only difference being that one of the plants would have strong involvement from the management team. The data that was used to quantify this theory was an employee survey and data collection. The data showed Plant A's management supported program resulted in a 25% lower changeover time compared to Plant B's non-supported management program. This data proved the hypothesis is accepted.