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Reducing changeover downtime on a particular packaging machine can be overwhelming. People often ask, “Where do I start?” I suggest starting with the way people think about the changeover. I call it pit stop mentality. In NASCAR, when the car pulls into the pit, they jack up the car, they pop the lugs, pull the wheel, mount the wheel, tighten the lugs, drop the car, run around to the other side, and do it all over again in less time than it took me to say it just now. NASCAR reduced the pit stops from 4 minutes to 13 seconds. That’s a ninety-nine percent reduction in change over time. Train your people to think like a pit crew. No race is won when the car’s in the pits, just like no company is making any money when the machines are down. People often try to reduce the change over time by changing the way people work. Instead, change the way people think about the changeover. Adopt the pit stop mentality.

    "A few months after installing the Thrive Downtime Tracking System"

    we identified several key issues with our manufacturing line. Once corrected, our efficiency sky rocketed from 39% to 75%.

    - Pat Kinnee, Splenda Continuous Improvement Engineer

    "We're currently running 8% better than our budgeted throughput standards, "

    so I consider it a win. Now we’re in a position where our other plants are interested in implementing the software.

    - Pete Szelwach, Plant Manager at Lassonde Pappas and Company, Inc.

    "We've been using Thrive for about a year with impressive results. "

    Changeovers that used to take 33 minutes now only take 23. With around two each day, that time really adds up. Before using the software, we were 20 minutes into our morning shift before lines started running, and we’ve cut it down to just 8 minutes. Overall efficiency has spiked from around 45% to an average of 60%. Seeing the data has really helped us create a culture of ownership and accountability. Everyone watches the measurements and does their best to make sure things are running efficiently, because they can see the impact. With the help of Thrive, we’ve had zero overtime during our busy season. That’s a company first! Now that we’re meeting production goals, we can be proactive and schedule time to take lines down for preventative maintenance.

    - Rollie Everson, Maintenance Supervisor, Amsoil

    "We were ready to pay $250,000 for a downtime system when by accident we stumbled across Thrive MES on the internet"

    “Not only did it offer everything the more expensive system did but it is a fraction of the price. We were even able to customize to our facility far within our budget.”

    ”After 2 years I was still able to teach them a few big things about the software that they didn’t know about. A recent major success they had was they were able to reduce their downtime by 17 whole shifts per year by making a small tweak in a process. Instead of stopping a machine to make a fabric slice for 1 minute, they slowed the machine down to make the slice while the machine was moving. They also noticed how much downtime changeovers caused so their scheduled department reduced their changesovers from 6 to 1 per week.”

    - Steve Kaiser, Operations Manager, Sage Products

    "Within 2 weeks their automated machines saw an increased efficiency by 20%"

    by giving the operator real-time visibility, they took more ownership and responsibility for the machine’s output. As a result, it made the operator think twice about shutting down the line. ‘Can I correct this issue without shutting the machine down?

    - John Batten, President, NHI Pullies Inc

    "We've been able to cut our overtime by 60%"

    as we identified that our change overs were the main source of downtime. Using this data to determine and implement solutions we were able to move from 12 hours shifts to 8 hour shifts. It also helped us reduce our quality issues by identifying sources of inefficiency.

    - Mark Hennigan, Director of Operations, CHG

    "We are really happy with it and love the planned downtime function."

    The planned downtime function immediately identified excessive breaks and created accountability for the line running. Management now has real-time data.

    - Keith Frazier, Maintenance Supervisor, Skyline Steel

    "The real-time data"

    in our break rooms and on our supervisor’s computers have created a real sense of urgency and ownership to improve our plant’s performance. You can’t argue with a 50 inch TV in the break room that updates every second.

    - Jerry McConnell, Lineage Logistics
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