Family Setup

Today’s production conditions with their declining lot sizes and rising product diversity make working with single setups increasingly unproductive in most plants. In a production environment that operates with average lot sizes between 200 and 1,000 units and requires multiple setup changeovers per week, generating setup families is a must.

Changing the setup with constant changeover tables
If large amounts of feeders need to be replaced, using changeover tables is recommended. Switching out entire changeover tables makes the changeover procedure as quick as it can be and reduces the line’s downtime considerably. Factories with foreseeable and repetitive product family sequences can prepare fixed setups on a group of changeover tables and keep them at the ready for the time when they are needed again.

Changing the setup with dynamic changeover tables
If the production sequence of product families changes permanently and the number of setup changes increases, it is recommended to generate new product families as needed. These are then set up at an offline station (SIPLACE Setup Center) with no production slowdown on another set of changeover tables. These “dynamic” changeover tables are then switched out with the ones that are currently docked to the machines.

SIPLACE SiCluster Professional
Beside the SIPLACE Pro Optimizer Software SIPLACE SiCluster Professional provides significant relief to minimize the changeover time and effort. E.g. the software is able to specify as many constant changeover tables as possible for the product families taking a given planning horizon into account and thus reducing the number of setup changeover procedures to a minimum.

Changeover tables and SIPLACE Random Setup
With SIPLACE Random Setup, changeover tables can now be set up with the feeders installed in any available slot. The results are outstanding, because this new setup method takes a lot less time in the setup preparation area and delivers more flexibility when it comes to balancing the line. Although the line’s speed drops minimally, its overall productivity receives a significant boost.

“Family setup” characteristics:

Production environment
 

Planning (Long planning horizon:
+++; short planning horizon: - - -)

Average lot size

Setup changeovers per shift

SIPLACE Features

With changeover table,
static pre-setup

+++
 

200-1000

1-3

SIPLACE Pro Optimizer

SIPLACE SiCluster Professional

SIPLACE Setup Center
(case by case )

Random Setup
(at changeover table)

With changeover table,
dynamic pre-setup

++
 

50-200

3-5

SIPLACE Pro Optimizer

SIPLACE SiCluster Professional

SIPLACE Setup Center
(case by case )

Random Setup
(at changeover table)