ErgoSMED: A Methodology to Reduce Setup Times and Improve Ergonomic Conditions

Abstract

The Lean manufacturing philosophy has been adopted by many different companies with the goal of responding to the economic recession which took place at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Two major motivators for this trend were reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction. Other than the known Lean methods, Human Factors and Ergonomics methods are also able to contribute to this emphasis. Thus, the creation of safe, effective workplaces emphasizing a human oriented approach, and the implementation of Ergonomics in business process management, represent two of the main conditions for the sustainable development of a company. Pinpointing the connections between Ergonomics and LPS enables us to address both at the same time. Besides, synergism between Lean and Ergonomics can be attained. The aim of this paper is to develop a tool in the form of a flowchart which will include the steps for integrating the single-minute exchange of die (SMED), a Lean tool, while considering Ergonomics. This flowchart (named “ErgoSMED”) has been validated by several case studies. We were able to demonstrate that synergism between Lean and Ergonomics can be reached. The ErgoSMED flowchart developed in this study is innovative because it combines Ergonomics with a SMED tool and is ready to be used in any production area by professionals or researchers.