Changeover Process Optimization for a Medical Device Manufacturer in Haina, Dominican Republic

Abstract

The medical device industry has the critical mission of saving and sustaining lives of patients being affected by chronical diseases. To these companies, having more available time to produce will enable and facilitate treatment for more patients that currently are left aside due to lack of medical solutions. Time invested on change over endeavors can be directly translated into revenue or productivity loss, as events of high duration decrease time available for production of sealable finished good units. This project assisted Baxter Healthcare’s subsidiary located in Haina, Dominican Republic on implementing Single-Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) methodology to enable Changeover time reduction of 80% vs baseline and augmenting in +25% current production capacity. The materialization of this project provides a practical example of a SMED implementation within the Medical Device Industry. Key Terms ⎯ Change Over Reduction, Internal vs External Process Activities, Productivity Augmentation, Single-Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED).