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Change initiative:
How resistance & obstacles can affect
organizations: From a blue-collar and manager perspective; a case study of a
manufacturing company in Sweden
Förändringsarbete:
Hur motstånd och hinder kan påverka organisationer:
ur ett perspektiv från industriarbetare och chefer; en
fallstudie i ett tillverkningsföretag i Sverige
Jonas Jones Talai
Faculty: Health, Science & Technology
Educational programee: Industrial Engineering & Management
Points: 30 ECTS
Supervisors: Stefan Hellman & Leo De Vin
Examiner: Mikael Johnson
Date: 2016-06-01
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Acknowledgements
Five years? – That is correct. It has been five years since I began a program
called M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering & Management at Karlstad University.
This period has been filled with anxiety, hard work and joyful memories that
will be with me for the rest of my life. However, to obtain the title that I have
worked towards from the start and begin calling myself an engineer, I am
destined to finish the last course, a master thesis. This master thesis covers 30
ECTS and was conducted in Feb-Jun of 2016, during a period of four months.
I would like to thank Swegon AB in Arvika for their welcoming and openness
during the thesis. I would also want to give a big thank you to the supervisor at
Swegon AB Erik Olsson and the blue-collar Anders Nordén for the opportunity
to conduct the thesis at the company and also for the support along the way. I
also want to send a big thanks to my supervisors for giving me good pointers to
think about when conducting the research.
Lastly and foremost, I would like to show my appreciation by giving my family
and close friends a big thank you for being supportive and helpful during these
five years.
So what will happen in the future? – Only god knows but I am excited to see
what the future beholds and I am truly ready to take on new challenges!
________________
Jonas Jones Talai
2016-06-01
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Abstract
The global market is very competitive due to fast changes in complex business
environments and to survive or expand the business, organizations must
embrace organizational change. However, adapting to change is not always easy,
where organizations may experience obstacles and resistance along the way.
Organizations may also experience that it is very hard to implement lean
successfully, due to lack of know-how but especially resistance. The traditional
way is to blame the blue-collars for the disturbing circumstances but in modern
times the wind has changed its course where the managers themselves can be a
contributor for implementation failures. Therefore, the aim of the research is to
investigate what advantages that can be obtained by implementing a certain
change initiative. Furthermore, to determine where resistance occurs and how
to eliminate or reduce them. The change initiative in this research is
implemented by conducting a case study in a Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs),
where the main goal is to reduce the changeover time of a machine, by finding
improvement suggestions using the Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED)
methodology. The results generated several improvement opportunities and
gave an indication that there is a huge potential for improvements and
elimination of waste during a typical changeover. The positive outcomes of
implementing these improvement opportunities could theoretically reduce the
changeover time, which directly reduces the overall cost but higher
responsiveness, flexibility and efficiency can also be obtained. However, the
evidence tells a story where the organization could experience obstacles during
the implementation of the improvement suggestions, due to several factors.
Surprisingly, the evidence points out that one root problem for resistance is
difficulties of describing the underlying reason of the change initiative to the
blue-collars. Moreover, there is in fact resistance and lack of awareness of the
SMED methodology among the blue-collars and the managers, where fear of
the unknown is another root problem for resistance.
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Keywords
Organizational change, change initiative, organizational culture, sustainable
change, organizational resistance, Lean production, SMED, Toyota production
system, Changeover, Setup-time, Setup reduction, Spaghetti diagram, and
standardized work
Glossary
Batch size – Amount of products that intends to be produced.
Blue-collar – Workers that usually works in a factory.
Bottleneck – A process that limits the capacity of the whole process line.
Bottom up approach – Approaching the problem at the bottom of the
hierarchy.
Changeover – A process where one die is changed to another.
Change agents – Persons that helps to organization to change or transform.
Continuous change – Changes that are ongoing and is implemented over time.
Decision matrix – Can aid in evaluating different events and alternatives.
Dies – Tools that can form material into parts.
Discrete change – Change that is not necessary permanent.
Feeding machine – A machine that feeds metal sheets into the excenter-press.
Lead-time – Elapsed time, from the ordering point until the product is
received.
LP or Lean – Lean production, a philosophy on how to manage resources
Nibbler – A tool used to cut metal sheet.
Organizational change – An organization that is going through a
transformation.
Reel – Helps the coil to rotate on its axel.
Production system – All activities included to complete and distribute a
product.
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Responsiveness – The ability to react quickly to customer demand.
SMEs - Small Medium Enterprises.
SMED – Single Minute Exchange of Die, a tool used to reduce the changeover
time.
Stakeholders – Individuals or groups that has any interest in the organization.
Sustainable change – Changes that sticks over time.
Shadow-board – A board that displays and stores tools.
Straightener – A machine that helps straighten metal sheets.
Transport module – Helps transporting material waste from the excenter-
press.
Output level – The amount of products produced in a period of time.
Organizational culture – Is included with values, norms and behaviors that
creates the environment of a company.
Run-up-time – The elapsed time needed to make the machine ready to start.
WIP – Work in progress, refers to all materials inside the plant such as, raw
material, processed material and finished goods.
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List of contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 11
1.1. Problem ................................................................................................... 12
1.2. Purpose .................................................................................................... 13
1.3. Case study description ............................................................................ 14
1.4. Limitations .............................................................................................. 15
1.5. Report structure ....................................................................................... 15
2. Methodology .................................................................................................. 16
2.1. Research Approach ................................................................................. 16
2.2. Research Design ..................................................................................... 16
2.3. Literature study ....................................................................................... 17
2.4. Case study ............................................................................................... 18
2.5. Research methods ................................................................................... 19
2.6. Data collection ........................................................................................ 20
2.6.1. Primary Data - Observation & Practice ........................................... 21
2.6.2. Primary Data - Interviews................................................................ 22
2.6.3. Primary Data – Measurements & SMED ........................................ 24
2.6.4. Secondary Data – Company Data .................................................... 24
2.7. Data analysis ........................................................................................... 25
2.8. Trustworthiness ....................................................................................... 26
3. Theory ............................................................................................................ 28
3.1. Organizational change ............................................................................ 28
3.1.1. Sustainable Change ......................................................................... 29
3.2. Lean Production ...................................................................................... 31
3.2.1. SMED .............................................................................................. 33
3.2.2. Changeover ...................................................................................... 35
3.2.3. 5S ..................................................................................................... 36
3.2.4. Standardized work ........................................................................... 37
3.2.5. Waste Management ......................................................................... 38
3.2.6. Spaghetti diagram ............................................................................ 39
4. Findings from the Case Study ....................................................................... 40
4.1. Company Description ............................................................................. 40
4.1. Financial reports ..................................................................................... 40
4.2. Layout around the press .......................................................................... 41
4.3. Excenter-press Sangiakomo 130T .......................................................... 41
4.4. Efficiency of the Excenter-press ............................................................. 43
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4.1. The Implementation of SMED ............................................................... 44
4.2. Waste Management ................................................................................ 46
4.2.1. Waiting waste .................................................................................. 46
4.2.2. Non-utilized talent waste................................................................. 46
4.2.3. Motion waste ................................................................................... 46
5. Result & Analysis ......................................................................................... 48
5.1. List of Improvement Opportunities & Improvement Suggestions ......... 48
5.1.1. Other Improvements....................................................................... 55
5.2. Savings in Time & Money ..................................................................... 58
5.3. Organizational change – three categories ............................................... 60
6. Discussion ..................................................................................................... 63
7. Conclusions ................................................................................................... 71
7.1. Future research ....................................................................................... 74
8. References ..................................................................................................... 75
9. Appendices .................................................................................................... 81
9.1. Appendix 1 ............................................................................................. 81
9.2. Appendix 2 ............................................................................................. 82
9.3. Appendix 3 ............................................................................................. 83
9.4. Appendix 4 ............................................................................................. 84
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Figures
Figure 1 - Structure of the report ........................................................................... 15
Figure 2 - Shows the techniques used as a research approach .............................. 16 Figure 3 - Flow diagram of the case study process ............................................... 19 Figure 4 - The development change process ......................................................... 30 Figure 5 - Diagram over turnover & operating profit ............................................ 40 Figure 6 - The layout around the press .................................................................. 41
Figure 7 - Picture of the excenter-press ................................................................. 42 Figure 8 - Example of a part produced in the excenter-press ................................ 43 Figure 9 - Efficiency of the excenter-press ........................................................... 43 Figure 11 - Shows all 72 activities ........................................................................ 45
Figure 10 - Shows the internal and external activities........................................... 45 Figure 12 - Movement made by the operator during a typical changeover ........... 47 Figure 13 - Example of fasteners used in the excenter-press ................................ 49
Figure 14 - Rotation locks the joint (Boellhoff, 2016) .......................................... 50 Figure 15 - Light axial pressure (Boellhoff, 2016) ................................................ 50 Figure 16– Example of a clamping (Grabcad, 2011) ............................................ 50 Figure 17 - The operator measures the length of the transport module. ................ 51
Figure 18 - The operator measures the length where the transport module is
supposed to be ....................................................................................................... 51
Figure 19 – The height is marked on the die ......................................................... 52 Figure 20 – Transport module with marked numbers ........................................... 52 Figure 21 - Example of where to place the bin...................................................... 52
Figure 22 – How it looks today ............................................................................. 52 Figure 23 - The fastener where no tools are needed .............................................. 53
Figure 24 - The fastener where tools are needed ................................................... 53 Figure 25 - Shows the reel system and its arms .................................................... 53
Figure 26 - An example of where to put the new nibbler ...................................... 55 Figure 27 - The pole at the straightener ................................................................. 55 Figure 28 – Where the completed parts comes out ............................................... 55
Figure 29 - An example of how it could look like at the end of the process line .. 56
Figure 30 - The drawers is a bit messy and unorganized ...................................... 57 Figure 31 – Shows that the workplace can be a bit chaotic ................................... 57 Figure 32 - The orange hammer is an example of how to shadow the board ........ 58
Tables
Table 1 - Values used to calculate the standard deviation ..................................... 44 Table 2 - External activities that could be completed while the machine is running
............................................................................................................................... 45
Table 3 - Unnecessary activities ............................................................................ 45 Table 4 – Wastes identified ................................................................................... 46
Table 5 - List of improvement opportunities .......................................................... 48
Table 6 – Rating values and what each value means. ........................................... 59 Table 7 - Activities with improvement opportunities. ........................................... 59 Table 8 – Calculated values taken from appendix 4. ............................................. 60
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1. Introduction
This chapter gives the reader the opportunity to obtain an overall picture of the background
and the purpose of the master thesis. First by a small introduction concerning organizational
change, followed by a problem overview. The intention is also to help the reader to recognize
how the research questions were generated and where they have its origin from.
In the present, the global market is highly competitive and to maintain or grow
the market position there are many strategies a company should implement to
succeed. To get there, change is something organizations must embrace, where
they can decide whether to do what they are doing or work with continuous
improvements and breathe in the new way of thinking (Richards, 2016). For
organizations, adapting to change is an everlasting challenge and is becoming
more vital to take serious (Piderit, 2000). One of the challenges in organizational
change is to retrieve an overall acceptance of the improvement work throughout
the whole organization (Weick & Quinn, 1999). To achieve this, organizations
are trying to gain a more flat and agile structure, where the culture is embedded
with a team-oriented spirit (Piderit, 2000). The most common obstacle behind
organizational change is resistance from the recipient (Oreg, 2003). When
managers decide to take the initiative to implement a certain change, the
potential of failure is high, due to the organizations themselves, where they tend
to focus more on the technical parts of the change initiative than the equally
important human factors, to successfully implement the change (Bovey & Hede,
2001). Furthermore, it is necessary for organizations to strengthen the support
or acceptance of change work from their employees. This can be achieved by
letting the employees experience participation when the change initiative occurs
and to boost up their confidence in their skills, concerning typical change work
(Choi, 2011). The traditional way is to portray and blame the staff and team
members when resistance and stalled progress occurs in the organization.
However, lately the wind has taken it course, where the change managers
themselves can be a contributor of the resistance that may occur (Ford, et al.
2008).
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1.1. Problem
To access a good analysis and create a solid base for the thesis it has been decided to make a
change initiative. In this case the change initiative will be done in a manufacturing industry in
the field of Lean Production.
For manufacturing industries, the manufacturing strategy is highly significant,
where it is important that the resources are used in the right place (Bennett &
Vaidya, 2005). The competition is so wide that the companies has no choice but
to improve their organization in many areas, such as price, product quality,
product variation and lead-time (Carrizo & Campos, 2011). This puts pressure
on the companies where the desire to reduce overall expenses and to achieve
better margins becomes more fundamental. The contribution of this has led
many organizations to use Lean production (LP) to find tools that can help them
become more profitable (Bhamu & Singh, 2014). LP is also becoming more
well-known among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) because of the fact
that LP can help organizations to reduce the overall cost. For SMEs,
implementing LP can cause major problems along the way, where SMEs tend
to lack financial resources and leadership (Achanga, et al. 2006).
LP has worked for many organizations through-out history but the LP practice
has been judged by many researchers, where lean tend to lack of human
integration (Hines, et al. 2004). The LP concept includes a set of different lean
tools but can also be seen as a philosophy where the goal is to work towards
continuous improvements (Pettersen, 2009). It was first used in the automotive
industry where the goal was to eliminate waste, where LP had the right tools to
significantly reduce different kinds of waste. The contribution from LP, also
gave an effective production system that used less resources, which in the end
resulted in products with better quality at a lower cost. Today LP is used in an
array of different industries to aid towards a more efficient and effective
business (Pettersen 2009; Womack, et al. 1990). Unfortunately it is not always
easy to implement LP and according to Bhasin (2012) the success rate of
implementing LP in manufacturing organizations in the UK is lower than ten
percent, where their study revealed that to access a higher chance of success,
human and financial commitment are crucial. Furthermore, Marchwinski (2007)
stated that four of the biggest complications when implementing LP are the
resistance from the middle management, employees, supervisor, and lack of
information regarding how to implement LP. The two major obstacles for
implementing LP in a Indian manufacturing industry was also the resistance
from employees and the lack of understanding the implementation of lean (Jasti
13
& Kodali, 2016). It can be hard to successfully implement lean if the
organization and the culture does not approve of it (Atkinson, 2010).
Jasti and Kodali (2016) suggest that more research should be done in this area.
In specific they suggested that researchers should discover how the
implementation of lean tools are done, determine which obstacles that can occur
during the implementation phase and deliver solutions that could reduce these
obstacles.
As a summary there are evidence pointing out that sometimes the
implementation of lean does not always succeed. The main reasons are the
resistance that can occur during and after the execution and the lack of
knowledge concerning LP. This goes hand in hand with the information
gathered in the introduction part, where Oreg (2003) pointed out that the most
common obstacle behind organizational change is resistance from the recipient.
The majority of the literature and the traditional way of thinking points to the
blue-collars as the root problem behind the resistance and the obstacles that can
occur during change initiatives. The combination of the outlay made by Jasti
and Kodali (2016) and the work of continuous improvements in organizational
change makes this area highly interesting. Therefore, it was decided that a
change initiative will be done and instead of conducting a change initiative in an
Indian manufacturing company, the change itself will be done in another
environment, a Swedish manufacturing company. Overall, the intention is to
obtain a better understanding of difficulties in organizational change and change
initiatives, why and where obstacles and resistances occurs during a typical
change initiative and how to reduce or eliminate them. Moreover, to explore if
it is possible to find any new root problems to why resistance occurs. The need
of conducting this kind of research, is to help organizations, especially in
Sweden, to be more aware of obstacles that may occur. Moreover, to give them
a better foundation of making proactive and premeditate decisions that can help
reduce or eliminate the obstacles and thereby increase the success rate of the
change initiative.
1.2. Purpose
The scope of the report will be to contribute to the research by investigating
and creating a better understanding and to obtain an overall picture concerning
organizational change and change initiatives. This study aims to determine
which advantages can be obtained by implementing a certain change initiative.
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Moreover, where resistance and obstacles occur in an organization and how to
reduce or eliminate them. The research will include one literature study and one
case study, where three research questions will be answered:
RQ1: What positive factors might the organization acquire by
implementing the improvement suggestions obtained from the change?
RQ2: How does the organization react towards organizational change
and what challenges could arise by implementing a certain change
initiative?
RQ3: What can the organization do, to increase the success rate during
the implementation phase of the change initiative?
1.3. Case study description
To allow for good analysis and conclusions, data must be obtain from a relevant source. In this
case a change initiative will be held at a company called Swegon AB to obtain the data. Down
below comes a small introduction of some of the problems the company is experiencing in the
daily operations.
To successfully create a solid research it has been decided to gather relevant data
from a company. The aim is to find solutions and improvement opportunities,
in an area where the company suggests they need to get better in. By doing so
empirical data can be retrieved at the same time. The company wants to reduce
the changeover time in one of their machines. Therefore, the aim will be to
implement and find the right lean tools where the goal is to reduce the
changeover time. The case study will be held at a company called Swegon AB
located in Arvika, a company that produces ventilation systems for buildings.
Lately the company has seen a flourishing growth because of several reasons,
such as low steel prices and an increase in real estate demand, especially in the
Stockholm region. Now the company wants to expand, by creating the next
generation of ventilation systems in their series called Parasol. This means that
more items will be running through the whole production plant.
The company sees a problem that might arise with the expansion and tries to
call the problem before it occurs. In the production plant there are several “key
machines” that supplies multiple machine groups and one of these is an
excenter-press. Currently 20 different dies can be used inside the machine and
the decision of when a changeover should be done is bounded to the demand.
15
According to the company the machine is only running in one shift, causing it
to be a bottleneck for several production lines. With the expansion the company
believes that the excenter-press will cause a higher level of bottleneck effect and
at the same time contribute to a higher inventory level in the future. By
increasing the efficiency and ensuring that the turnover rate and the tied-up
capital is lower, the changeover time will be crucial for the batch-size and the
utilization of the machine. The expansion will make the load higher on the
machine and with the new generation of ventilation system, four dies will be
added to the mix. According to the company the average time for a changeover
is approximately two hours today.
1.4. Limitations
The case study will focus on the internal and external activities of the excenter-
press. There will be a current situation analysis of the work routine. The physical
observation will only be done on the most frequent changeovers. Hopefully,
this will generate a general improvement plan, which the company can
implement to reduce the changeover time, primary on the observed ones and
after that to all the other changeovers that occurs in the machine and other
machines.
1.5. Report structure
In order to find information and allow the research questions to fully be
answered, it was decided to structure the report. From an abstract perspective,
the report will be structured as in figure 1. The figure illustrates that the first step
includes of some type of change initiative. In order to allow the change initiative
to be implemented, a change implementation phase must be conducted, which
is step 2. By narrowing it down to the last step the SMED method was chosen
and will be the main lean tool implemented inside the organization to aid the
purpose of the master thesis.
Figure 1 - Structure of the report
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2. Methodology
The intention of this chapter is to give the reader the understanding of the methodology principles
and what path the author used, to collect the necessary data needed, to answer the research
questions. The reader will also gain an insight of how the literature- and case data was gathered.
2.1. Research Approach
The research approach chosen can be seen in figure 2, followed by
argumentations to why these techniques and methods are suitable for this
master thesis in the chapters to come.
2.2. Research Design
The research design aims to create a structure within a framework where the
research is supposed to be conducted. This will lead to an overall perspective,
which will generate a plan and method for the research. In the end this will
reflect on the path the researcher theoretically is going, meaning how the
researcher intend to answer the research questions. Furthermore, the
framework helps the researcher all the way from the questions to the final stage
of analysis. The plan itself will help the researcher to gather data and analysis
method. The choice of which research design to choose from depends on the
problem itself and personal experiences (Creswell, 2009; Kothari, 2004;
Saunders, et al. 2009).
The framework of this master thesis will include a literature study and a case
study, where these studies seemed to be suitable for this type of research. This
Research Design: Literature Study Case Study
Research Methods: Qualitative Quantitative
Data Collection: Primary Data Secondary Data
Analyze Method: Deductive
Figure 2 - Shows the techniques used as a research approach
17
generated and helped to create the foundation and the ability to answer the
research questions.
2.3. Literature study
The literature study can be time consuming but by developing and using a
general plan can help the researcher to save time (Saunders, et al. 2009). The
first step in this section is to choose which research topic to investigate further
into. The topic will be the core idea of what the study intend to discover
(Creswell, 2009). The literature study is a vital phase to get better understanding
and knowledge of the intended field of study. Furthermore, it aids to find the
theoretical foundation of the study, shed light on the ideas and develop the path
of the research method (Kumar, 2011).
The topic of this thesis is: Change initiative: How resistance & obstacles can affect
organizations: From a blue-collar and manager perspective; a case study of a manufacturing
company in Sweden.
By implementing the strategy of the research it is essential to take the time to
find appropriate and up-to-date literature. According to Saunders et al. (2009)
there are some pointers that should be included in the search strategy:
State all search parameters, such as language, subject and business field.
State the key words and search terms that are supposed to be used.
State the databases and search engines that are supposed to be used.
This thesis interacts mostly with organizational change, lean production and the
theory underneath it, to obtain the right tools for the research. Another big
contributor is the SMED methodology and the changeover aspect of the
method. Some of the literature came from journals, articles, reviews, empirical
and case studies. To find these documents scientific databases such as Science
Direct and Business Source Premier were used. The parameters used in the
searching process were:
Subject field: Organizational change & Lean Production.
Business field: Production system.
18
Language used to find literature: English and Swedish.
Key words and search terms that were used during the searching process:
Organizational change, change initiative, organizational culture, sustainable change, organizational
resistance, Lean production, SMED, Toyota production system, Changeover, Setup-time, Setup
reduction, Spaghetti diagram, and standardized work.
2.4. Case study
In this research it was decided to go with a case study approach. Because this
method is ideal to use in events that occur in the present and is a very common
practice if the study includes a qualitative approach, especially when an
observation or interview of a social unit is being done. Meaning that the unit is
a person, institution, group or a community. To use this method it is vital to see
the overall study population as one object. If the research questions are
developed as “why”, “what” and “how” form, this method is preferable.
Furthermore, it suits the research when the goal is to investigate further into
unknown areas, which will lead to a better overall understanding of the situation
(Kothari, 2004; Yin, 2009)
According to Yin (2009) there are several ways to gather relevant data for the
case study:
Observe the ongoing events, either by being formal or casual.
Gather documents such as notes, agendas and appropriate reports.
Participate by taking on a role in the events itself.
Interviews in different forms, such as open-ended, focused or surveys.
Archived records such as, budgets, organizational data or service
records.
Physical artifacts.
19
All pointers listed above made the decision easy that a case study approach is
the right method to us in this research. The structure of the case study and all
processes included to make a final conclusion of the whole master thesis, can
be seen in figure 3.
2.5. Research methods
Qualitative and quantitative are popular when developing a foundation for a
research study. The difference of the design are many where a quantitative
approach are usually detailed, well organized and are clearly defined and known,
where the foundation is that the research can be quantified. However, the
qualitative approach does not usually include these characteristics but if they do,
the amount is not massive. Generally they are less detailed and defined, where
the depth of the structure is not on the same level. (Kumar, 2011; Kothari,
2004).
Overall the qualitative research is a great tool for defining verbal information
from individuals own experience of the addressed research issues. By gathering
the data from people’s point of view of the problem, information about their
beliefs, behaviors, opinions and feelings can be obtained. In summary, there are
Figure 3 - Flow diagram of the case study process
20
three strategies to choose from: qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods and
from here the researcher can select which study within the three categories
(Creswell, 2009).
This master thesis is primary built on a qualitative research method because it is
believed to suit the cause of the report the best but there will also be traces of
some quantitative approaches as well. The reason why is because the
combination of quantitative and qualitative research is said to generate a better
comprehension of the real situation (Mack, et al. 2005).
2.6. Data collection
Generally there are two types of data categories to collect from and which one
to gather, depends on several factors such as, what the research study intends
to answer, what the purpose of the research is, what resources are available and
the knowledge of the researcher (Kumar, 2009):
Primary data usually consists of data that are gathered explicit for the research
problem itself, by using techniques that will aid the research problem in a good
manner. This data can also be seen as fresh data where it has been gathered for
the first time. The biggest advantage of retrieving the data on your own, is that
the whole construction of the research part can be custom-made to the research
question itself. This gives a clearness to the study where the information
gathered, probably aids to solve the issue in hand (Hox & Boeije, 2005).
Secondary data are data that has been collected before and are stored both as raw
data and published summaries. It is common that companies gathers and store
data to help the organization in their daily operations. This could include, payroll
information, copies of documents and accounting details. Furthermore,
secondary data usually contains quantitative and sometimes qualitative data,
meaning that the data is mostly in numbers (Saunders, et al. 2009).
According to Mack et al. (2005) there are three methods that are commonly
used when implementing qualitative research and the goal is to gather primary
data:
Participate by observing – works good when the aim is to gather data on
naturally ongoing behaviors and activities.
Profound interviews - works good when the aim is to gather data on
peoples’ personal experiences, perspectives and knowledge.
21
Focus groups - takes the cultural norms of all participants into account,
this will lead to a broad perspective of the problems of concern. This is
an effective approach to gain relevant data.
In this case, the majority of the data gathered is primary data and by following
the two first pointers from (Mack, et al. 2005) the primary data was obtained by
conducting observations, interviews and the steps included in the SMED
methodology. Secondary data was also obtained from the company database,
such as information about the company and their efficiency in the daily
operations.
2.6.1. Primary Data - Observation & Practice
Normally the observation part is something that is done in the beginning of the
data gathering phase. What individuals say they do and what they actually are
doing in reality does not always match. The usefulness in observing, is that an
overall understanding of people’s behaviors and activities can be obtained. What
are they actually doing? How often? Whit whom? Usually, the observation part
gives the foundation of collecting data that only can originate from personal
experiences. Another advantage is that the researcher can also discover essential
factors that were unfamiliar when the study began. To obtain the data, the
researcher usually takes notes, which can contain everything from writings to
charts (Mack, et al. 2005). The difference between observing and participating
is that the observing part should be done as an “outsider” by taking relevant
notes as described above. In the participating part the researcher basically takes
part in the daily operations, which earlier were observed. Furthermore, it is
crucial to document the activities that are considered to be important, at the
same time (Mack, et al. 2005).
The first step was to gain an overall picture and understanding on how the
production plant looks like at Swegon AB, therefore a tour was conducted. The
tour gave an insight of which production lines that directly and indirectly affects
the excenter-press. Furthermore, to obtain the understanding on how their
finished products works. Next episode was to conduct observation sessions at
the excenter-press to obtain a clearer understanding of the whole process and
the activities included in a typical changeover of the machine. By being present
and observing when an operator completed a changeover, allowed the author
to focus on the activities in hand and to take relevant notes for future analysis.
Furthermore, a comprehension of abnormal behaviors and activities made by
the operator, could be obtained. Some of the activities were at first sight seen as
22
unnecessary but by observing many changeovers the true nature and the reason
behind the activity could be obtained, where some of them indeed was necessary
to complete the changeover.
In an early stage it was decided to combine the observation part by recording
the changeovers with a video camera, instead of only relying on the notes and
the memory of the author. The reason behind this decision was because, while
observing it might be easy to miss out on important factors and information.
These factors can be of value, when it comes to accomplishing the goal of
reducing the changeover time. Moreover, it is easier to look at the recordings
and go deeper into detail, which creates the foundation of good findings and
analysis. The author believes that by being present, trust is created, which makes
the workers more open to discuss the topic, dissatisfactions and improvement
opportunities.
To get an even better and deeper understanding a small practice session was
conducted, where the operator allowed the author to try to complete easy
activities in a typical changeover process. The idea was to get a perspective of a
changeover from a workers point of view and maybe obtain some important
information concerning improvement opportunities. Overall the observation &
practice sessions was time consuming it took many man hours to complete
them.
2.6.2. Primary Data - Interviews
Semi-structured interviews:
This interview method is usually casual and unstructured, where the interview
regularly is made when there is an observation going on. The interview has its
framework, where the questions themselves should be within the subject. The
researcher has a list of questions that needs to be answered but also has the
opportunity to ask other questions that are not listed, within the subject. This
gives the researcher the ability to ask questions within the theme that suddenly
pops up, which can aid to understand the topic better (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006)
During the semi-structured interviews, the persons were interviewed separately
and the location of the interview was conducted wherever the person wanted
to, to make them feel comfortable during the interview. The selection of the
people to interview was based on their role, knowledge, experience and for how
long they had been working at the company. Moreover, other requirements were
that the person must have some type of experience concerning the excenter-
23
press, change- and improvement work that has happened during their time at
the company. In this case, only three managers and three blue-collars met the
requirements listed above, therefore only six persons were interviewed.
Furthermore, it was said that the interviews were anonymous, where the
intention was to earn their trust and to set the foundation where the person
could feel secure to answer truthfully. In the beginning, the author explained
the purpose and the study objectives of the interview.
An interview guide was created beforehand and included three main subjects;
SMED, change- and improvement work. The questions included in the
interview can be seen in Appendix 1, where the questions were open-ended.
However, during the interviews follow-up questions were conducted as well,
within the subjects. The intention of the interview was to hear people’s
experiences, knowledges, opinions, inputs and feelings, within the borders of
the subjects. In the beginning of the interview the author stated the purpose and
the study objectives of the interview to the participants. During the interview
notes were taken but if the permission was given from the participant the
interviews were also recorded. This gave the opportunity to focus more on the
interview in hand instead of taking a lot of notes. This opportunity also allowed
the author to listen and analyze the interviews after they were conducted. In
case the recording equipment malfunctioned, the most relevant notes were
taken during the interviews for backup. In the end, the interviews were
transcribed and summarized into readable content within the week. The
participants received the transcribed interview were they had the opportunity to
correct or accept the content
Unstructured interviews:
During the observation & practice sessions, unstructured interviews was made
frequently with the operators. This interview method includes in-depth, open-
ended interviews and does not include predetermined subjects or questions,
meaning that the overall interview have no boundaries. It is usually used to
discover people’s intention and meaning in a certain situation or activity (Punch,
2013). By doing so a relationship with them could be built up where they could
feel safe to tell the author what they had on their mind. The purpose was primary
to gain more information and an even deeper understanding of the activities and
improvement opportunities. Furthermore, also to get their opinion about the
organization itself or detailed information concerning the machine. The
unstructured interviews were primary done with the operator that frequently
operates the machine. Other workers and managers was also questioned to get
a broader understanding. In this topic approximately three to four workers
24
contributed to the research by conducting open-ended questions such as, “What
are you doing here?”, “Why are you doing this?”, “What do you think about this
activity?” and “How can we do this better?”. By being present while a
changeover was made and ask these questions in action, a lot of relevant
information could be obtained. This information was documented by taking
notes and was later compiled into a document. After analyzing the interviews, it
was not unusual that follow up questions came up. Instead of going immediately
to the worker back and forth when a question popped up, a bunch of questions
was gathered for the worker to answer.
2.6.3. Primary Data – Measurements & SMED
To get a better grip of why the changeover took too much time to complete and
what type of improvement opportunities that are available, relevant tools were
used. In this case the SMED method was used by following Shingo’s (1985)
steps, as described in chapter 3. The recordings and notes from the observation
sessions were used, to identify all activities needed to complete a changeover.
These activities were written down on post-it’s in sequence, with the resources
and time needed to complete the activity. Later on the activities were separated
into internal and external activities. Here, the focus was to determine if it was
possible to transform any internal activities into external activities, by asking the
question, “Can this internal activity be done while the machine is running? “.
Moreover, it was decided to look at the activities and try to see if it was possible
to eliminate or improve any activities. With the activities mapped out the next
step included a session where the goal was to see if the wastes described in
chapter 3 could be identified and if some of the activities could be completed in
less time. This was done by evaluating a typical changeover by looking at the
activities, notes and to continue to look at the tapes. By asking questions such
as “Can this activity be completed faster? Tools, such as the spaghetti diagram
was used to get an overall picture on how the operator moves around the plant
and to see if motion waste could be identified and reduced.
2.6.4. Secondary Data – Company Data
Company data was basically obtained from two different sources. Information
regarding the efficiency of the machine, revenue and the operating profit of the
organization, were obtained from a digital database owned by the company. The
other source came from a company booklet, where information concerning the
company and the machine were obtained.
25
2.7. Data analysis
To make the data collected useful it is important to choose an analyze method
that can be helpful in getting a better understanding of the content. The purpose
of the analyze method is to summarize and organize the content, in order to
answer the research questions (Khotari, 2004). According to Saunders et al.
(2009) there are two different approaches to qualitative analysis, deductive and
inductive. This master thesis will follow a deductive approach, which seems to
be more suitable for this type of research.
By using the theory as an analytical framework, it is possible to compare the
collected data, with the theory. This can help to find relations or related
operations between the collected data and the theory (Saunders, et al. 2009).
Before the comparing session, the data must go through several steps. First the
data gathered from the interviews must be transcribed and summarized. Later
on, the data should be categorized, which involves two phases, first by creating
categories and secondly by structuring the data under the right category. This
allows the researcher to compare the data with the theory and sets the
foundation of finding similarities and differences (Saunders, et al. 2009)
In this case the data analysis of the transcripts were done, by examining them
quickly to get an overall feeling of the content from the interviews. At the same
time the first impression of the content was written down. Afterwards the same
process was basically made again but with another approach, where the content
was read more thorough and line by line. The next step involved a coding
session where the author marked relevant words and sentences, such as
opinions, key factors and differences between the participants. These codes
were later on divided into groups that the author felt they belonged, which
allowed the author to interpret the interviews by gathering the most important
codes together. This session made it possible to develop and categorize the
codes into three main categories and give each category a label. As a final step,
the categories were compared with themselves and the theory to find
connections and differences between them and to help set the foundation of
good analysis and conclusions.
26
2.8. Trustworthiness
When it is time to asses and analyze whether the content of the research is made
with quality, the reliability and validity approach is a very common method to
use. However, Bryman & Bell (2011) states that a qualitative research should be
evaluated by other principles and standards, compared with what the reliability
and validity method can offer. Trustworthiness can be used instead to discuss
and evaluate the quality of the research. According to (Bryman & Bell, 2011;
Kumar, 2009) this method consists of four parts:
Credibility
This criteria looks at the results obtained from the qualitative research and
determines whether the results are believable from the standpoint of the
participant. In this case the author thinks the results are arbitrary, where the
results themselves are believed to contain a high level of credibility. One of the
reasons is the similarities and relations that were conducted between the theories
and the findings from the case study. The credibility is one of the strongest
contributor to trustworthiness because the participants are basically the only
ones who can justify and judge the credibility of the outcome. This creates a
foundation where the researcher can ensure similarities between theories and
observations.
Transferability
Transferability describes how likely the results of the research can be generalized
and implemented into other contexts and environments. Qualitative researches
usually contains case studies. This can cause problems for the researcher
because it can be hard to transfer the result to another social setting. In this case
it is hard to discuss whether the result will be the same or not, by implementing
the same case study into another context. The results themselves are believed
to be dependable on other factors, where the human factor is believed to be the
factor that can vary a lot. For example, the results from the interview can
depend on how the interviews were conducted and who the participants are.
However, by looking at methodology only, the author believes that the
methodology in this case is very solid and thoroughly written into detail, which
can help generate a better foundation for other researchers to obtain similar
results.
27
Dependability
Dependability can be seen as a parallel to reliability in quantitative research. The
research can obtain a higher level of dependability by ensuring that all data are
stored and available from the research processes such as, notes, analysis,
interviews and decisions. In this case the interview guide, all calculations and
data obtained from the case study has been stored in the report but what was
exactly said during the interviews are not available. However, there is a reason
for why they are not included in the report. The interviews were said to be
anonymous and thereby it did not feel morally right to include them in the
report. If the researcher is consistent in the work during the research process a
higher dependability can be achieved in the results. The idea is to enable an
external person to follow the case study accordingly, where the person would
obtain a similar result as in the research. Overall, the dependability feels arbitrary
in this case, where the research is believed to be thoroughly made.
Confirmability
This criteria involves the factor whether the data gathered is influenced by the
researcher’s opinions or not. Meaning that the researcher should not sway the
content to a desired direction. In this case it is easy to sway to a desired direction
because the report is included with interviews and a case study. However, to
eliminate that this happens, the participants had the opportunity to look through
the interviews, by accepting or change the content. Overall, the author believes
that the research is properly made as a neutral observant and without any
predetermined imaginations of what the results should be. In this step the
findings and the results can be confirmed by other researchers.
Overall, the reason behind choosing the trustworthiness approach is because it
seemed to be suitable, for this type of research. Furthermore, it can be hard to
determine if the results are trustworthy but in the end it is believed to be up to
the reader to determine if the results are trustworthy or not.
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3. Theory
This episode gives the reader an insight of different theories that is relevant for completing the
thesis. The theory can be divided into two groups, where the reader in the first chapter encounters
the theory regarding organizational change and how to make a sustainable implementation of
the change initiative. The next chapter explains what Lean production is, where the sub-topics
mentions different lean tools and methods that are commonly used when it comes to Lean
production.
3.1. Organizational change
Park and Kim (2015) identifies organizational change as a transformation that
occurs throughout the organization, which takes components or interactions
from the organization that corresponds with the complexity of organizational
systems. Organizational change can occur due to several factors and according
to Strebel (1994), change forces can be found in three different forms. They can
occur by following current trends in areas such as economic, technological,
competitive, organizational environment and socio-political. The second form
is when the organization adapts to a certain implementation such as new
innovations, products or lifecycles, where the capacity and resources initially
does not meet the requirement. The last form are changes that rise internally
from the organization and can occur due to shifting goals from the organization,
new managers or change agents.
It is common in organizational change, that knowledge takes time to transfer
where the requirements of being successful involves changing the organizational
culture (Herron & Hicks, 2008). Moreover, according to Herron and Hicks
(2008) the support from the management and their attitude are fundamental
factors when it comes to being successful during a change initiative. During
organizational change, the management should have their vision and strategy
fully mapped out, the support concerning change initiatives and a good level of
education are important, to fully be able to achieve the improvement goal.
Furthermore, the management should be able to operate in various
environments and welcome change with open arms. Therefore, it is beneficial
if the management has a long-term focus. Capable personal with expertise in the
field is crucial, where it is highly important that the personal has the opportunity
29
to educate and try out their innovative ideas. The financial aspect is highly
fundamental for organizations as well and to have the opportunity to grow and
improve, capital investments and funds are crucial. The organizational culture
is one cornerstone that creates the image of the organization. High-performing
organizations tend to have a culture of sustainable and proactive influences,
when it comes to improvement work (Achanga, et al. 2006).
One of the reasons behind the resistance of accomplishing a certain change in
an organization is fear (Milgrom & Roberts, 1995). Sometimes change initiatives
can cause disturbances in the process that is intended to improve. The reason
why is because the employees may fear that the improvement will take the job
from them and are therefore ready to sabotage the change initiative (Achanga,
et al. 2006). Moreover, if the employees respond to the new pace and the higher
output level by working harder, the reality might be exposed. This could display
that the employees can be more productive, where management might push
them harder and raise the output level. This could generate pressure and stress
on the employees, which is something they fear (Ford, et al. 2008). Stressful
employees tend to make decisions that can harm themselves or the company
(Kaster, 2013). According to Mansour (2014) work injuries are a major
contributor of the total cost for businesses and globally there are over
270million accidents and two million deaths, which are work related yearly.
The resistance to change also happens when the action program does not meet
the originally proposed change, which means that the improvement plan did not
meet the expectations (Langstrand & Elg, 2012). Expectations can be seen as
beliefs and anticipations which occur when there are any uncertainties on how
the future and the outcome might look like (Hubbert, et al. 1995). The
foundation of the expectations can come from norms or estimates and can be
divided into concerns and hopes. People’s expectations can be really hard to get
a grip of where some are realistic and others unrealistic. The difference in
expectations can have a great impact on future initiatives and activities. To have
extraordinary hopes are not always good, where individuals with high level of
expectations may experience a low level of beneficial outcomes of the event,
compared with people with a low level of expectations (Nilsson, 2010).
3.1.1. Sustainable Change
The sustainability of change can be described as a period, where new
approaches, goals and improvements are being sustained. Furthermore, it can
also be seen as change that sticks, long after the change has been carried out
(Buchanan, et al. 2005). Today many organizations are implementing change
30
and after the implementation phase, difficulties of sustaining the improvement
comes up to light. Meaning that the challenge is to sustain the new way of
working (Bateman, 2005). Renewal is an important factor when it comes to
sustainable change, where stakeholders around us, such as employees, the
society and interest organizations play a role in it (Brännmark & Benn, 2012).
When it comes to sustaining any type of lean implementation, it is crucial and
highly important to see lean as a system that infuses the organizational culture
at the same time as the change initiative occurs. The organization will probably
not be successful by only implementing the lean tools in hand (Liker, 2004).
When the organization is being transformed during organizational change it is
important to use a “bottom-up” approach to obtain a sustainable efficiency in
the long-term (Abdul, et al. 2004). The intention of change initiatives are usually
to achieve a certain goal or vision and this can be defined as having an
implementation phase. During organizational change, it is common that the
intention of the implementation is to work towards continuous change and by
doing so enabling the goal to be fulfilled (Brännmark & Benn, 2012). However,
by working towards continuous change, the discrete change itself does not need
to be permanent. Meaning that the change cannot last forever, if the intention
is to gain a change process that is sustainable (Buchanan, et al. 2005).
The continuous change process can be seen in figure 4. The implementation
phase is to create a discrete change or a continuous change, where the change
either can fail or succeed. If the change is successful in its implementation, it
can also take a path in becoming durable or sustainable (Brännmark & Benn,
2012).
Figure 4 - The development change process
31
(Svensson, et al. 2007 refereed in Brännmark & Benn, 2012) identifies four key
components that can help evaluate and create the foundation of achieving a
sustainable change process in the long-run.
Active ownership
The commitment and involvement from the management during and after the
change initiative is crucial if the goal is to achieve sustainability in the change. It
can also be beneficial if there is an active owner that can take responsibility for
the change program and the outcome from the change initiative.
Professional steering
If the goal is to maintain the change it can be beneficial to have a steering group,
which is responsible in making sure the change initiative meets the requirements
of the owners and help to distribute resources when needed.
Continuing and competent leadership
When it comes to organizational change, the leaders should lead by example. It
is highly significant if the communication between the leaders and those affected
by the change, is in place. Furthermore, the leaders should engage and
networking with the stakeholders, during and after the change.
Engagement from the participants
Engagement from the participants are highly important, where they can be a
motivational factor and aid the change initiative with a drive force, by being
committed to the change. The engagement intends to involve the stakeholders
by listening to their opinions and innovative ideas. To make this happen it is
important that the participants has access to resources, time and training.
3.2. Lean Production
The history of LP has its roots from the automotive company Toyota. LP has
its roots in Japan, and has been with us in over four decades (Hoss, et al.
2013).The development of Toyota Production System (TPS), which is known
as Lean production today, was developed after World War 2, where people from
Toyota studied Ford’s original idea and TPS was invented (Womack, et al. 1990).
The concept can now be seen in varies industries where LP can help
organizations get a clearer perspective of which activities has improvement
32
opportunities and how to improve them (Holweg, 2007). The primary goal for
implementing LP, is its ability to eliminate waste within the organization by
decreasing internal activities, customer and supplier variability (Shah & Ward,
2007). Today companies need to improve their activities or develop innovative
products to remain competitive. The possibility of achieving this lies powerfully
on the capability and willingness of the personnel to complete the tasks properly
and efficient. Meaning that the commitment and influences from the employees
are very important (Weckenmann, et al. 2015).
When it comes to LP, one important factor is to create the possibility for
participation, meaning that every single person in the organization no matter
what title you have, should feel involved in the daily operations. When the
employee contributes towards success in the business, generally the work from
the person will be better as well (Bergman & Klefsjö, 2012). Furthermore, with
the globalization and complex process systems the social responsibility and
sustainability becomes more fundamental. Where the organization will be
judged on many factors such as sustainability, transparency and to meet
customer demand. Companies cannot only focus on the product itself, where
they need to take the employee policy and the environmental part seriously
(Weckenmann, 2015). Some important factors when implementing lean, is the
importance of combining lean with the organization culture, customers and
suppliers (Holweg, 2007).
According to Liker (2004) LP can be summarized into 14 principles, where these
principles gets divided into four categories, which is known as the 4P-model.
The categories are, Philosophy, Process, People & Partners and Problem
solving:
Philosophy
The organizational culture should have the mindset of a long-term approach as
a foundation, even if it may harm the short-term goals.
Process
Work with the daily operations and improve them by eliminating different kinds
of wastes that may occur in the organization. This will remove non-value added
activities and make the processes run more smoothly.
33
People and partners
By developing and challenge the personal and the suppliers in becoming better
on what they are doing. Creating leaders that lives by the principles of the
organization sets the foundation, where the philosophy will continue to live in
the future to come. It is also important to respect one and other, to create
harmony throughout the organization.
Problem solving
It is important to look further into root problems and solve them, to set the
foundation of learning and development in the organization. This should be
done by continuously look for improvement opportunities.
The tools offered by LP that may aid the organization to reduce wastes are
many. However, some tools are more important than others, such as Single
Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) and 5s (Chiarini, 2014).
3.2.1. SMED
The SMED methodology is considered to be a lean tool and can be used in all
kinds of industries and machines, where the goal is to simplify and improve the
overall work routine of the changeovers. The core value lies in minimizing the
overall time to complete a changeover by converting internal activities to
external ones and to eliminate wastes. The goal is to generate a changeover that
takes less than ten minutes to complete (Moxham & Greatbanks, 2001). The
SMED method was created by an engineer called Shingo, which implemented
the practice in an automotive industry and was able to successfully reduce the
time for a certain changeover by of 57 percent. Other researchers found out
that a companies had the opportunity to reduce the changeover by 50
respectively 48 percent (Jit Singh & Khaduja, 2009; Mulla, et al. 2014). The
founder of the traditional SMED, describes the method in more detail in four
steps (Shingo, 1985):
Step 1 – Map all activities
The goal is to retrieve a better picture of all processes that occurs when a
changeover is done. The information needed can be collected by asking the
operators how each step looks like when a changeover is completed or simply,
34
by observing the operator when the activities are being made. When information
is being gathered it is vital to get data over how long each activity takes. By
writing the activities and the resources needed to complete respectively process
on a list, a better understanding of the situation can be obtained.
Step 2 – Categorize all internal- and external activities
When the overall mapping is finished, the activities gets divided into two
different groups. Internal, where the activities only can be completed when the
machine is standing still and external, where the activities can be done when the
machine is running. To fulfill the categorization the recommendation is to use
three different tools:
Point out all resources needed to complete a changeover, such as tools,
labor and procedures.
Make a function test of all tools by examine its condition and availability.
Prepare the tools and components before it is time to make the
changeover.
Step 3 – Convert internal activities to external activities
In this phase, the changeover itself is being studied, where the goal is to convert
as many internal activities into external ones. This is accomplished by using
standardized tools and work routines, where it is possible. The improvement
happens, either by transforming the equipment or the work routine. It can also
be beneficial to prepare parts and tools in advance.
Step 4 – Streamline internal- and external activities
Improve internal changeover – Try to carry out multiple settings at the
same time and avoid manual fasteners and screws, which takes times.
Improve external changeover – Included with activities that can help the
operator to fulfill the adjustments in an efficient way. First and foremost,
it is crucial to insure that the tool is working properly. Accordingly, try
to eliminate waste, which is included by moving, finding or replacing
tools respectively materials.
SMED is a tool that can both be used in theory and practice, if the goal is to
reduce the changeover time for any type of machine. Especially if the machine
is considered to be a bottleneck, which limits the whole production line. The
35
use of SMED makes the production capacity higher and more flexible (Van
Goubergen & Van Landeghem, 2002). However, lately there are some
researchers that claim that the traditional SMED is lacking in some areas.
According to Mcintosh, et al. (2000) one of these is the run-up-time for the
machine. It is stated that manufacturing tests and adjustments should be
included, to assure that the right quality and output speed are acquired, when it
comes to improve the changeover. In practical there are two ways to achieve a
reduction in the changeover time. The first one is to improve the current system,
by establishing improvement projects. The other one is simply to invest, by
buying a whole new and modern system. (Mileham, et al. 1999)
3.2.2. Changeover
For manufacturing companies the changeover time becomes more vital to
reduce, because it has a direct-link with the cost. This means that a reduction of
the changeover time will lead to increase in profits (Freeland, et al. 1990). The
definition of a changeover is the elapsed time for the last product in the series
to leave the machine, until the first product from the new series comes out in
good quality (Van Goubergen & Van Landeghem, 2002). The activities that
occurs when a changeover is made are many and according to King (2009) the
tasks involved in a changeover can be:
Fetch the right tools or put them away.
Fetch spare parts, such as gaskets and filters.
Cooling down or heating up.
Mechanical adjustments.
Removal of used parts.
Acquire right temperature, pressure and viscosity so the machine can
run.
Reducing the time for a typical changeover in a certain machine or production
system, can lead to many beneficial factors (Jit Singh & Khaduja, 2009):
Makes it possible to produce shorter series.
Reduction in changeover time.
36
Reduction in work labor.
Shorter lead-time for the products.
The productivity and the utilization of resources are improved.
The production system becomes more flexible.
Reduction of manufacturing cost.
The literature on how to reduce the changeover is out there but unfortunately
the majority of the companies does not take advantage of all data available, when
they are making an effort in implementing reduction programs. Research shows
that companies has a genuine interest in accomplishing reduction in the
changeover time but lack of structure and focus, which makes the result less
effective (Gest, et al. 1995).
3.2.3. 5S
If the goal is to work with continuous improvements, then 5S is a great tool to
use to achieve this. It helps organizations to increase their productivity and
becoming more efficient. The methodology was created in Japan, to aid and
engage the employees to work with improvements on a daily basis (Edwards,
2015). 5S is a collection of five words that comes from the Japanese language –
Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu and Shutsuke, - and these words equivalents in
English are - Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize and sustain (Jaca, et al. 2014).
Down below is an explanation of all steps included in the 5s methodology
(Edwards, 2015):
Sort
In this step the idea is to put things in order by removing unnecessary items
from the workplace. These objects can be tools that are rarely being used and
are kept “in case they come in handy”.
Set in order
In this phase it can be beneficial to create a place where all the necessary tools
are stored, so the operator can reach or find the tools immediately. By having
the items in the right place, it eliminates the search for tools. The right place can
be a shadow board with the necessary tools on it and if any tool is missing the
operator can detect and replace it without any problems.
37
Shine
This step is included with activities that makes the workplace and tools look
clean. To maintain a clean workshop, it is important to make frequent
inspections and to use checklists to ensure that the cleaning process is being
made.
Standardize
When the three first steps are being implemented it is time to standardize them,
to obtain an efficient way of completing the tasks in hand. By using different
kinds of aiding tools such as, work instructions, process maps, kanban cards and
by creating a flawless shadow board with each and every tool marked on it.
These actions can eliminate non-value-added tasks during a typical process that
occurs in the production line.
Sustain
The final step is to sustain and maintain all four steps over time. These steps
should be a habit for the operators, where these practices should be embedded
in the daily work and the company culture. This will set the foundation of
continuous improvements, efficiency and productivity, which all results in better
profit.
3.2.4. Standardized work
Standardized work is a philosophy that is commonly used in manufacturing
industries, where the idea is to make all activities more effective. By
implementing activities which are consistent, repeatable and timely, the effective
outcome can be acquired. (Lu & Yang, 2015; Miltenburg 2007). This will
generate a reduction in overall waste and better quality of the product, which
also sets the foundation of working towards continuous improvement. By doing
so it is important to let the workers set the standard, of how a certain process
should be done in the improvement stage, for obtaining best practice
conditions. To get a better overall understanding it can be beneficial to use
standardized work sheets (Liker, 2004).
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3.2.5. Waste Management
When it comes to creating products, it is common that different kinds of wastes
can occur throughout the whole production system. According to (Ohno, 1988;
Womack and Jones 1996) there are all together eight wastes, companies should
try to reduce or eliminate.
Overproduction
This happens when the process continues to produce a product when in fact it
should have stopped. This action contributes to products that are made to early
and creates a surplus of products, which contributes to higher inventory level.
Inventory
Inventory includes everything from, raw materials, work in progress (WIP) and
completed products. The inventory which does not directly help to fulfill the
customer demand is seen as waste. The excessive inventory contributes to an
increase in handling, processing and storage space.
Defects
Defects are basically completed products that does not meet the customer
requirements, which directly results in dissatisfaction.
Transport
This includes unnecessary movement or motion of materials, which is
transported from one activity to another. The excessive transportation route
contributes to additional time spent on a certain process, which does not add
any value.
Waiting
Waiting can be seen as a period of inactivity and happens when a process does
not deliver on time and when the upstream process have to wait. The waiting
time does not add any value and can also result in overproduction.
Extra processing
The need to do extra activities such as remaking, reprocessing or the need to
store products because of defects, overproduction or unnecessary inventory, are
seen as extra processing.
39
Motion
Motion can be described as, when the workers are taking steps by moving,
which are unnecessary due to inefficient layouts, rework, and defects. The excess
in motion does not add any value to the product itself.
Non-utilized talents
This pointer was added to the 7 wastes by Womack and Jones (1996) and occurs
when the employees are not effectively involved in a given process or activity.
This means that the creativity and the ideas that the employees might have for
improvements, should be heard and taken seriously.
3.2.6. Spaghetti diagram
The spaghetti diagram gives an overall picture and can be seen as the voice of
the process, where it is easy to follow a product or a person when activities are
being made. The diagram helps to get a virtual indication on how a person or a
product is moving when activities are being made. Accordingly, this will aid in
identifying unnecessary waste such as, walking and motions of a certain work
routine (Chiarini, 2013).
40
4. Findings from the Case Study
This section presents the data collected from the case study to the reader.
4.1. Company Description
Swegon AB is a merger of several companies, which manufactures components
and well thought-out ventilation systems. Their indoor climate solutions creates
value for the customers, in majority to commercial real estates but also to
homes, by substantially save energy consumption. The company is owned and
is a part of the Latour investment corporation. With the help of Swegon and
their products, all houses can obtain the perfect indoor climate. At the moment
the company has around 1800 employees and 11 production sites in different
areas around the globe, such as, Sweden, India and North America.
4.1. Financial reports
The diagram in figure 5, indicates that the growth of the company is in an up
going trend and has increased each year from 2011-2015. However, by looking
at the two latest years it can be seen that the operating profit of the company is
in a decreasing trend.
Figure 5 - Diagram over turnover & operating profit
41
4.2. Layout around the press
The company is producing a lot of different parts inside the plant, which directly
goes to the assembly line afterwards. In figure 6 a part of the plant layout has
been cut out, which shows the layout around the excenter-press. Furthermore,
the square in the figure indicates the area that the case study mainly was focusing
on. This area is where the machine is located and is called Sangiakomo 130T.
All the dies that are being used by the machine are stored on the shelves and are
located near the press. The arrows marked in the figure indicates where these
shelves are located.
4.3. Excenter-press Sangiakomo 130T
The company has used the excenter-press for many years and is a key machine
that supplies many production groups, especially the assembly department with
a lot of different parts. The machine itself can be seen in figure 7 and some of
the parameters of the machine is listed down below:
Figure 6 - The layout around the press
42
Press model: T130R CE.
Year: 2000.
Press force: 130kN.
Stroke length: 76-200 mm.
Stroke counts/min: 28-70.
Working table: 650x1100mm.
Cutting capacity 600x200mm.
Maximum coil width: 500mm.
Figure 7 - Picture of the excenter-press
43
With the press distributing a press force of 130kN, makes it possible to create
metal sheets into finished parts. An example of which type of part the machine
can create look at figure 8.
4.4. Efficiency of the Excenter-press
The company has a list of the time planned for the machine for each and single
week. This means that the operator has a certain amount of time to finish the
scheduled production batches. If the operator uses exactly the same time as the
planned time, the efficiency will be 100%. In this case, by looking at figure 9, the
average efficiency during the weeks of 1-11 in 2016 was 105 %. In first glimpse
it seems to be a good result but by looking at the efficiency target which is 135%
the average efficiency is lower than the efficiency target.
Figure 8 - Example of a part produced in the excenter-press
Figure 9 - Efficiency of the excenter-press
44
4.1. The Implementation of SMED
The documented changeovers gave an indication that a changeover does not
follow a standardized setup. This means that the activities are not made in a pre-
determined sequence, where the operator basically follows their instinct to
complete them. This also means that the changeover sequence varies depending
on decisions made by the operator. The observation part revealed that the time
concerning the changeover process varies a lot. In total seven changeovers were
observed, where these changeovers took approximately 50 minutes up to 135
minutes to complete. The variation depends on several factors such as which
type of die is being used, if the raw-material is near the press and if there are any
obstacles or problems during the changeover. The standard deviation counted
for 26.2, which can be seen in table 1 and how this was calculated can be seen in
appendix 2.
The average changeover takes 93.7 minutes to complete. Therefore, it was
decided to look further and more deeply into one changeover that was in the
mid-range. In this case the changeover that was closest to the average value was
a changeover that took 84.2 minutes to complete. All activities in this
changeover counted for 72 activities. With the data gathered from the
observations, the work with the SMED methodology and all its steps were
established. The resources and the time used to complete the activities and if
they were internal or external can be seen in appendix 3. All activities from
appendix 3, can also be seen in figure 10 in sequence. The separation of the
activities, between internal and external activities can be seen in figure 11.
Changover (number) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Changeover Time (min) 49.8 78.6 82.9 84.2 107.4 118.3 134.4
Deviation (min) 43.9 15.1 10.8 9.5 -13.7 -24.6 -40.7
Average (min) 93.7
Variance 687.3
Standard Deviation 26.2
Table 1 - Values used to calculate the standard deviation
45
Some of the external activities that were made while the machine stood still
could easily be done while the machine is running. These activities can be seen
in table 2.
During the changeover it was noted that some activities are unnecessary to do
if they were made properly from the beginning. In this changeover there was
three activities that caught the eye, which can be seen in table 3.
Number Activity Internal External Time (s) Resources
20 Move a forklift which stands in the way X 20 Truck
21 Jump in the right forlikft and move a box that stands in the way X 16 Truck
32 Move ladder nr.1 again X 21
Total (s) 57.0
Figure 10 - Shows all 72 activities Figure 11 - Shows the internal and external activities
Table 2 - External activities that could be completed while the machine is running
Table 3 - Unnecessary activities
Number Activity Internal External Time (s) Resources
4 Leave the box with finished goods to its shelf space X 125 Truck
6 Clean the waste transport module X 59 Cloth
7 Determine which product-plan to run X 15
35 Determine which fastener to use for the waste transport module X 43
37 Measure if the right raw-material is near the machine X 24 Rule
38 Retrieve raw-material from the warehouse X 352 Truck
69 Create boxes where the parts will be X 95
70 Fetch the boxes X 92 Truck
Total (min) 13.4
46
4.2. Waste Management
During the observation sessions it was determined to look for any type of wastes
that could occur during a changeover. The author identified three out of eight
wastes, which were found during the observation sessions and the interviews
and can be seen in table 4. In this case the author decided whether the activities
could be considered as waste or not. However, these wastes were not sought
out actively, where the wastes only were noted if they appeared during the case
study.
4.2.1. Waiting waste
Sometimes waiting time happens when the forklift is being used by another
worker.
4.2.2. Non-utilized talent waste
The unstructured interviews gave an indication that non-utilized talent is in fact
going to waste, where the creativity and ideas from the operator is not heard.
The operator have pitched some ideas to the managers but it happens that they
do not receive any response.
4.2.3. Motion waste
Motion is one of the biggest waste that occurs during a changeover. For
example, when there is a need of throwing away metal sheets, the operator needs
to go around and throw it in the bin, at the back of the machine. Furthermore,
to use the nibbler at the straightener, the motion to get the tool is excessive.
These are just some examples but by looking at the spaghetti diagram, figure 12
a better understanding of the situation can be obtained. The diagram is quite
unstructured and some of the activities can also be eliminated, by doing them
Waste Type Yes No
Overproduction X
Inventory X
Defects X
Transport X
Waiting X
Extra processing X
Motion X
Non-utilized talents X
Table 4 – Wastes identified
47
while the excenter-press is running. The unnecessary motion can contribute to
large amount of time needed to complete a certain changeover and gives an
overall picture that there might be room for improvements.
Spaghetti Diagram
Figure 12 - Movement made by the operator during a typical changeover
48
5. Result & Analysis
In this section the reader will encounter several improvement suggestions and other results,
which derives from analysis and the data gathered from the case study.
5.1. List of Improvement Opportunities & Improvement Suggestions
When it comes to transforming or improving some of the activities, by reducing
time spent on them and to make them more efficient, it was decided that it is
crucial to understand the activities and hear, what suggestions the operator of
the machine might have. This means that the improvement suggestions are
based on ideas from the author and the operator, where the author had the final
word of which improvement suggestions to go further with. Some of the
activities has room for improvement, which can be seen in table 5. These
activities happens to be both external and internal. Down below follows an
explanation of the problem for each activity and improvement suggestions that
can be made, to reduce the overall time and to gain more efficiency in the
activities.
Table 5 - List of improvement opportunities
Number Activity Internal External Time (s) Resources
1 Remove fasteners from the die X 210 Tools
16 Fetch & Measure so the right transport module is being used X 42 Rule
18 Set the height for the press X 28 Rule
24 Remove the old fasteners & attach the new ones X 88 Tools
30 Fasten the outer fasteners X 135 Tools
39 Remove the fasteners from the reel X 58 Tools
42 Lift up the coil & push it in the reel X 120 Truck
46 Fasten the outer fastener for the reel X 39 Tools
50 Obtain the nibbler & fasten it in the air hose X 41
54 Throw away sheet wastes X 33
60 Unscrew all brackets from the die X 112 Tools
62 Fasten all brackets X 170 Tools
67 Throw away test parts X 15
Total (min) 18.2
49
Activity: 1, 24, 30, 60, 62
During a typical changeover, basic tools are used frequently, especially when it
comes to fasten or unfasten the fasteners, screws or brackets. These activities
are being made very often and to reduce the time needed can have a great impact
on the changeover. Today, the operator needs to find the right tools before
being able to fasten the screws. During the fastening process it is common that
a screw jams and the operator must use a lot of force to fasten them. This
happens easily when the screw threads are worn out. This process is very time
consuming and inefficient. Therefore, the idea is to find a solution where the
operator can fasten the brackets such as, in figure 13 with little effort as possible.
Improvement suggestions:
The suggestions are simple and can reduce the time consumption a lot. The idea
is to use fasteners that does not need a tool to be fastened. In this case there are
some fasteners that could be feasible for the cause and it should be possible to
use them without making too many changes inside the excenter-press
1. Quickloc – from Boelhoff (2016), which is a quick release fastener,
meaning that the user can open and close the fastener quickly. By putting
light axial pressure and afterwards rotating the joint locks and this will
make the object fixed, figure 14 and 15. If the user wants to release the
fastener, simply make the motion backwards and the object will be
unfixed.
Figure 13 - Example of fasteners used in the excenter-press
50
2. Clamps, by finding the one with the right pressure this can also be a
solution that is feasible for locking the die in the machine. No tools are
needed, see figure 16.
3. Magnetic fasteners, is another solution that might work to hold the dies
firm in the right place.
Figure 15 - Light axial pressure (Boellhoff, 2016) Figure 14 - Rotation locks the joint (Boellhoff, 2016)
Figure 16– Example of a clamping (Grabcad, 2011)
51
Activity 16 & 18
Before the operator fetches the transport module, the person measures the
length, where the module is supposed to be with a ruler, figure 17. When the
length is determined another measurement happens when the operator is trying
to find the right transport module, figure 18. Furthermore, before putting the die
into the machine, the operator measures the height of the die and uses this
parameter to set the height of the press manually, so the die goes in smoothly.
This way of determining what type of module and what height to use when
putting the die into the machine is very inefficient.
Improvement suggestions:
The dies are marked with a number, this number helps the operator to know
which die to use when the kanban card arrives. The idea is simple, by using the
number of each and every die and mark the transport modules with these
numbers. The operator will immediately see, which transport module belongs
to which die, figure 19. Furthermore, if the height already is marked on the die,
the user will immediately see the height, figure 20. These suggestions would
eliminate the measurement parts and remove non-value-added activities.
Figure 17 - The operator measures the length of the
transport module.
Figure 18 - The operator measures the length where
the transport module is supposed to be
52
Activity 54 & 67
When metal waste occurs either by cutting out metal sheets at the straightener
or to throw away finished goods that does not meet the quality requirements.
The operator goes around the machine and throws it into the bin, located at the
back of the machine.
Improvement suggestion:
A trash can should be located near the straightening machine figure 21, to
eliminate unnecessary movement. An example where to put it, look at figure 22.
Figure 20 – The height is marked on the die Figure 19 – Transport module with marked numbers
Figure 22 – How it looks today Figure 21 - Example of where to place the bin
53
Activity 39 & 46
The fasteners for the reel are used for security reasons and to maintain the coil
at its place. Today the company uses different types of fasteners, which can be
seen in figure 23 and 24. The fastener used in figure 23 works very well, where no
tools are needed but the fastening device in figure 24 is very inefficient. Here the
operator needs to fasten three fasteners by using a wrench and the space, limits
the torque movement. Moreover, which fastener the operator uses depends on
the width of the coil, because the fastener in figure 24 cannot be used when the
width exceeds 53 cm. The reason why, is because the length of the arms where
the fasteners are being fasten is to short, causing this type of fastener to be non-
functional.
Improvement suggestion:
Try to find a solution where the arm length gets longer, either in investing in a
new reel system or weld on more material to get longer arms, figure 25. This will
generate, that only one type of fastener as in figure 24, is needed to fasten the
coil on the reel.
Figure 24 - The fastener where no tools are
needed Figure 23 - The fastener where tools are
needed
Figure 25 - Shows the reel system and its arms
54
Activity 42
When it is time to put the coil on the reel, the operator needs a forklift to lift
the coil and push it into the reel. Furthermore, to ensure that the coil is in the
middle, the operate needs to go out from the forklift, make measurements by
using the eyes and the ruler. It is common that the operator needs to get out of
the forklift several times to see if the coil is in the middle or not.
Improvement suggestions:
Instead of using a forklift to handle the coil it would be better to invest in a
traverse crane and a lifting cart. This would give the operator better sight and
ability to handle materials. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to invest in a
solution that removes the measurement part. An idea would be to have a laser
pointer so it is easier to find the center line of the coil.
Activity 50
During a typical changeover the operator cuts off the first metal sheet that goes
through the straightener. So every time the operator needs to walk to get the
nibbler at the working station near the press and then go back to the
straightener. Furthermore, the operator needs to retrieve the air hose located
few meters from the straightener. This can be seen as excessive motion, which
applies time on the overall changeover.
Improvement suggestion:
Install an air hose at the pole next to the straightener figure 26 and invest in an
extra nibbler, which should be placed near the straightener for example at the
shadow board in figure 27. This will eliminate motion where the operator can
access the nibbler immediately, when it is needed.
55
5.1.1. Other Improvements
In the end of the process line where the finished goods are being transported
by the conveyor into the storage box, it is common that the operator is located
there, handling the finished parts, figure 28. This causes problems for the
operator, where it eliminates the ability to obtain a good sight over the activities
that occurs inside the excenter-press. When everything is running smoothly, it
is not a big issue but when the machine defaults or create problems, the operator
is too far away from the controlling board and seeing what is happening. This
means that non-value-added activities are being made inside the machine before
the operator reaches the stop button. Furthermore, it is common that the
operator tries to understand what really happened when the machine
malfunction, by looking at the defect parts and into the machine. Unfortunately
Figure 27 - The pole at the straightener Figure 26 - An example of where to put the new
nibbler
Figure 28 – Where the completed parts comes out
56
every single time this happened, the operator has no clue, why the machine
defaulted.
Improvement suggestions:
Firstly, if the operator should be able to stop the machine as fast as possible
from the given location, it would be beneficial to create a start/stop button near
that area. An idea would be to install this button at the red button, marked in
figure 29.
The other suggestion would be to install surveillance equipment and a TV, figure
29, so the operator can see what happens inside the machine or be able to look
at footage to see what went wrong. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to write
down when something happened and with which die, into a logbook. This could
generate a better understanding on why certain things happens and keep track
of frequent disturbances. By doing so, it could give the foundation for analyzing
what kind of improvements are needed to reduce the probability that a certain
stoppage happens again. With the continuous work with improvements the
result could eliminate some stoppages and reduce the overall stoppage time. In
the end this could even lead to better quality and higher customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, it could be beneficial to implement a light or a sound system that
indicates when a problem occurs inside the press. This helps the operator to
always be aware when something happens, generating that the person quickly
can respond to the problem.
Figure 29 - An example of how it could look like at the
end of the process line
57
When it comes to 5s there are evidence that points towards that the company
works with 5s accordingly. All five steps included in 5s can be seen inside the
plant but there are room for improvements. Looking at figure 30, the workplace
is a bit messy where it is common that some of the tools and other objects are
located at the bench. During a typical changeover, the operator finds the tools
located at the shadow-board quickly but one contributor to the overall time
elapsed is when the operator tries to find tools in the drawers. By looking at the
drawer in figure 31, where tools and other items are located, it is a bit chaotic.
The drawer can contain other objects that should not be there and it can also
be disorganized.
Improvement suggestions:
The company should work with 5s more accurate by cleaning the workplace so
it looks neat and clean, especially when it comes to the drawers. The company
should screen and organize the tools, by removing unnecessary items from the
drawers. Concerning the shadow board the company should shadow the
contour of the tools on the board as can be seen in figure 32, to aid the operator
to put the tools back faster. These changes will eliminate the time it takes to put
back and finding the right tools.
Figure 31 – Shows that the workplace can be a bit
chaotic Figure 30 - The drawers is a bit messy and
unorganized
58
Other recommendations for the future, would be to invest in more reliable
equipment and machines, such as an automated- straightener and feeder.
Furthermore, the company could go from using a traditional die to use a mother
die instead. The mother die can be seen as a die framework that is always fixed
inside the press. When it is time to change the die, the operator simply replaces
the shaping tools instead of replacing the whole die from the machine.
5.2. Savings in Time & Money
By gathering all activities that has been listed as improvement opportunities in
chapter 5, the eventual time- and cost savings can be calculated, to see how much
time and cost reduction it is possible to obtain in theory by implementing these
improvements. In a perfect world where the company and the employees
decides to implement all improvement suggestions, which is not that likely, a
high percentage of time reduction could be obtained. However, there is an
uncertainty on how much that could be saved in practice, therefore it was
decided to find a solution which might correspond with the practical outcome.
The solution was to create a decision matrix where two parameters were taken
into concern. The two parameters were given a value from 0-1, with steps of
0.25, where the explanation of each step can be seen in table 6. The first
parameter points out how much the author thinks the activity can be reduced
by implementing the improvement suggestion. A score of 1 indicates that the
activity itself can be eliminated and 0 indicates that there are no possible time
Figure 32 - The orange hammer is an example of how to
shadow the board
59
savings. The last one is the possibility, which is supposed to describe the
possibility that the company and the employees will implement the
improvement suggestion. When the parameters obtained a value from the rating
system in each and every activity, the weighted value could be obtained by
multiplying the two parameters. After that the weighted values were multiplied
with the time it takes to complete a certain activity. This gave a theoretical result
of how much time reduction is possible to obtain in practice.
With this method of calculating the time the company could save 3.85 minutes
in practice, by implementing these improvement suggestions. This is more than
a reasonable answer and can be seen as a worst case scenario. However, the
outcome can vary depending on how the company will act, concerning which
improvement suggestion they decide to implement or not. Moreover, by
summarizing all time reduction opportunities from table 2, 3 and 7, the total time
savings stands for 18.22 minutes. This result stands for a time reduction of
21.63%.
To be able to calculate how much the company could save in terms of money,
information concerning how much an employee costs needs to be obtained.
Moreover, some assumptions and estimates must be made as well. To complete
Rating Scale
0 Does not meet the requirement at all
0.25 Meets the requirment a little bit
0.5 Neutral
0.75 Meets the requirement
1 Meets the requirement very well
Table 6 – Rating values and what each value means.
Number Activity Possible time saving Possibility Weighted Value Time (s) Time Savings
1 Remove fasteners from the die 0.50 0.50 0.25 210.00 52.50
18 Set the height for the press 0.25 1.00 0.25 28.00 7.00
24 Remove the old fasteners & attach the new ones 0.50 0.50 0.25 88.00 22.00
30 Fasten the outer fasteners 0.25 0.50 0.13 135.00 16.88
39 Remove the fasteners from the reel 0.50 0.25 0.13 58.00 7.25
42 Lift up the coil & push it in the reel 0.25 0.25 0.06 120.00 7.50
46 Fasten the outer fastener for the reel 0.50 0.25 0.13 39.00 4.88
50 Obtain the nibbler & fasten it in the air hose 0.25 1.00 0.25 41.00 10.25
54 Throw away sheet wastes 0.75 1.00 0.75 33.00 24.75
60 Unscrew all brackets from the die 0.50 0.50 0.25 112.00 28.00
62 Fasten all brackets 0.50 0.50 0.25 170.00 42.50
67 Throw away the test parts 0.50 1.00 0.50 15.00 7.50
Total (min) 3.85
Table 7 - Activities with improvement opportunities.
60
the activities during a typical changeover, only one blue-collar is needed and
according to LO (2015) a blue-collar in Sweden earns in average 26500kr
monthly. Furthermore, taxes and social fees for employing one blue-collar was
taken from Verksamt (2016). With this in hand it is possible to determine how
much a blue-collar costs per hour. With the calculated values which can be seen
in table 8, it was possible to calculate that a blue-collar approximately costs
213kr/hour. With this in hand the estimation is that a typical changeover in
terms of money can be reduced by 21.63 % compared with how it is done today.
For the changeover that have been analyzed a reduction of 64.7kr/changeover
can be obtained. According to the operator in average two changeovers are
being made each day and an assumption that there are 260 working days/year.
How these values were obtained, by assumptions and calculations, look at
appendix 4.
5.3. Organizational change – three categories
The interviews conducted at the organization gave a lot of information,
concerning organizational change and change initiative. However, to get a grip
of and an understanding of the content, a coding session of the transcripts
collected from the interviews were conducted. The coding session generated
three main categories. The re-thinkers, the brake-blockers and the walls. The re-thinkers
and the brake-blockers can be seen as persons, where they are surrounded by the
walls. The intention of creating categories is to maintain some level of
anonymity when it comes to sensitive information in the interviews and to
minimize the chance of someone figuring out what the managers respectively
the blue-collars have said. The explanation of what each category contains and
means, can be seen down below:
Re-thinkers:
The re-thinkers embraces change and welcomes it with open arms. One of their
attributes is curiosity where they see change as an opportunity to make things
Table 8 – Calculated values taken from appendix 4.
Salary/year Vacation pay/year Payroll tax/year Insurance cost/year Total cost/year
291500 34980 102580 13549 442609
Weeks/year Working days/week Working days/year Working hours/day Working hours/year
52 5 260 8 2080
Cost/hour Cost Saved/changeover Avg. Changeover/day Savings/year (kr)
213 64.70 2 33650
61
better and easier. There should be an open dialogue with everyone where the
opportunity to participate and be active in the change process is important. With
this in mind the re-thinkers value communication and involvement very high
and has no problem to meet mid-way if resistance or any obstacles occurs.
Furthermore, they also believe that it is important to listen and accept one and
other by avoiding any type of suppress. If a certain improvement suggestion is
not being approved they want to hear an explanation of why it does not work.
The re-thinkers would love to have more time to explore and work with
improvements. By doing more deep analysis and being more proactive to find
improvement reasons and opportunities. Moreover, they would also like to see
that the budget would allow for one person that only worked with improvement
work. One motivational factor for the re-thinkers, is to see a certain change take
form, which generates a positive outcome and vibe throughout the whole
organization. It also appears that they have good knowledge of what SMED is
and what type of advantages that may be obtained by implementing it. They also
tend to have high hopes and expectations of what the improvements can
generate for the company and themselves.
Brake-blockers:
Change can make the brake-blockers a bit nervous where the unknown of what
the future beholds scares them. The scariest part is said to be the freedom of
the individual, where this might be removed, piece by piece. They prefer to be
a bit withdrawn by listening and looking at the change beforehand, making them
a bit sluggish and resistant in the beginning but this does not mean that they are
totally against it. They want to understand the advantages and having control
over the situation by being prepared, before letting the change sink in. The
brake-blockers wants to work their way into the role by finding a working
technique that suits them the best. They also tend to take their time to complete
their work because of bad factors that may affect them negatively such as, stress,
work overload and injuries.
For the brake-blockers involvement, resources and help from all employees are
important factors to motivate them during improvement work. However, some
of them believe that the company in the majority of time only implement
changes that are beneficial for the company and not the employees. They lack
the knowledge concerning what SMED is and what type of advantages that may
be obtained from it. They also tend to have lower grade of expectations of what
the improvements can generate, compared with the re-thinkers.
62
The walls
The organizational culture is said to be embedded within the company walls
since the company was founded, where change is not something that is
considered to be positive. In the past the workforce usually reacted negative
towards change. This is something that still happens, especially when it comes
to the elder, but not in the same level as before. The mindset of the blue-collars
have changed a lot where they have a higher threshold and acceptance for
change initiatives. Usually there are no concern to implement the change
initiative as long as the blue-collars are involved and understands the benefits
of the change. Lately, the company have done many organizational changes but
for every change, it gets easier and easier to implement the change. Nowadays,
the blue-collars are more aware of what LP means and what the managers are
trying to implement but there is still room for improvements. The managers has
a tendency to go a little too far with the change imitative before involving the
affected persons. It is said that it would be better if the managers involved and
asked the blue-collars in an earlier stage. The reason why is because they might
have good pointers and a better understanding on how to make the process
better.
Improvement work are usually predetermined by the management, where the
blue-collars does not have much to say about it. The company has a goal where
each blue-collar should come up with four improvement suggestions per year.
At the moment the improvement suggestions piles up one by one and with the
lack of time and budget, the managers has to take the decision to cross them
out from the list, without doing anything. Moreover, the managers gathers all
improvement suggestions and priorities the improvements that are seen as being
most crucial. The time and the resources to go through all improvements are
not available. The managers can react both positive and negative when it comes
improvement suggestions. If a certain improvement does not need capital the
managers are positive but on the other hand, when improvements needs capital,
they tend to be negative towards the suggestions. Furthermore, it is very
common that the decision concerning the improvement takes time where the
blue-collars repeatedly needs to urge the managers, if something is supposed to
happen.
The mangers believes that they need to get better in passing on why they are
not implementing a certain improvement suggestion. Few of them know what
they want but they do not quite reach the mass concerning what the goal is. The
managers think that they need to work more structured when it comes to
improvement work. At the moment the company is putting more resources
63
towards improvements instead of focusing on informing and educate the blue-
collars. The company has a short-term mindset when it comes to the economical
part but their desire is to see things evolve in the long run. At the moment it is
hard to act in the long run because of the pressure that comes from the owners
where they want to see good numbers frequently. These actions takes a lot of
time that could have been focused towards improvement work. Resistance
occurs when the management is doing their thing without listening to what the
blur-collars think and have to say. The resistance can be found in both camps
where bad communication is one of the biggest contributor.
Lastly, a quote from one of the interviews were a person said: “If you get the
human to understand why changes are being made the organization would get
a tremendous force in the change work itself.”
6. Discussion
The purpose of the research is to investigate if it is possible to obtain positive outcomes by
implementing a change initiative. Moreover, to determine where resistance and obstacles occurs
and how to reduce or eliminate them. In this section the reader will be introduced to the
discussion, where the discussion is included with an analysis of the results and the noteworthy
findings. The first paragraphs mainly contains information about positive factors that can be
obtained from the SMED method and aims to answering RQ1. The rest aims to answering
RQ- 2 and 3, concerning change initiative and organizational change. The conclusions will
also be presented, followed by future studies the author believes are interesting to investigate
further into.
There is said to be two ways of obtaining time reduction in a changeover, either
by investing in new machines or by creating improvement plans (Mileham, et al.
1999). In this case the approach was to find improvement opportunities that
does not need too much capital to make them a reality. To find proper
improvement opportunities the SMED methodology was used accordingly
because it is said to be a good lean tool to use, if the goal is to reduce the
changeover time (Shingo, 1985; Van Goubergen & Van Landeghem, 2002).
Organizations tend to have the interest of decreasing the changeover time but
unfortunately they tend to lack of focus and structure, which makes the outcome
less effective (Gest, et.al, 1995). Overall, it can be hard to determine what
actually can be obtained by implementing the improvement suggestions, which
was generated from the SMED initiative, because it is difficult to know how the
64
actual outcome will be. However, it is still possible to discuss to what extent and
what type of advantages that can be obtained by implementing the changes that
are suggested.
Looking at the case from a theoretical and an estimation point of view, the case
study revealed that in terms of time respectively money, the organization could
reduce the time by approximately 158 hours and the cost by 33650 kr yearly, by
implementing SMED on their excenter-press. It is important to understand that
the cost is generated from an assumption that a blue-collar costs 213kr/hour
but this value can be considered as an estimation, where the blue-collar for
example, never has an absent day. It is believed that a blue-collar in practice
costs more than this value. Moreover, if the organization decides to implement
the improvement suggestions inside the plant several positive outcomes can be
obtained. The author believes that the organization could improve in all areas
that Carrizo and Campos (2011) identifies as important factors to stay
competitive on the global market. The improvement suggestions could allow
the operator to complete more changeovers per day and to produce smaller
batch sizes, which directly means that the responsiveness towards their
customers are higher and the lead-time lower. The leeway and the possibility to
make more changeovers per day are some reasons to why the company wanted
to implement SMED. This will generate more flexibility in the planning and
when the company produces smaller batch sizes, the inventory level will
decrease at the same time. Furthermore, the manufacturing cost will also
decrease if the operator completes the changeovers faster. By gathering all these
factors, the company could decrease the overall cost, which in the end can
generate better margins. This corresponds with Bhamu and Sangwan (2014)
statement that lean tools can help organizations become more profitable.
By narrowing it down into details the author believes that the organization can
expect some of the positive factors Jit Singh and Khaduja (2009) mentions.
First, it is important to understand the reason to why the company wanted to
implement SMED on the press. This is obviously stated in the case study
description but the main root problems are believed to be the efficiency and the
declining trend in operating profit. Sure, one could argue that the change
initiative and the improvement suggestions, will not have that great impact on
the total efficiency and operating profit of the organization. However, it is
important to look at the greater picture, if the change seems to generate positive
factors, the company might decide to implement SMED on every machine
inside the plant, where the overall impact could be massive. In this case the
65
reduction of the changeover stood for 21.63 percent in worst case scenario. This
can be compared with the result of other researchers, where Shingo (1985)
managed to reduce the changeover by 57 percent and other researchers
identified that their improvement suggestions could reduce the changeover up
to 48 respectively 50 percent (Jit Singh & Khaduja, 2009; Mulla, et al. 2014).
This means that the reduction of 21.63 percent is lower than the value obtained
from the other researchers. However, it is essential to understand that the values
comes from many assumptions, where they can have a great impact on the final
result, depending on what improvement suggestions the company decides to
implement and possible time saving. At the moment the possible time savings
and the possibility that the company will implement the activity in hand, is
acquired from the author’s fundamental analysis. It might have been better to
involve and ask the managers and the blue-collars opinion about what they think
about the improvement suggestions and what value to put in each activity,
instead of choosing these values voluntarily. This could have helped setting a
more reliable value for each activity. By changing these values a little bit, the
multiple expansion can generate a huge difference on the outcome. Thus, it is
important to not take the result as an infinite when it comes to the overall
reduction in time respectively cost.
In first glimpse the average efficiency of 105 percent seems to be relatively good
but the average target efficiency is 135 percent, meaning that the average
efficiency is lower than the efficiency target. Why the company choses to have
an efficiency target above 100 can be discussed. It is believed that the reason
behind this is the uncertainty of how long each changeover takes. As mentioned
before the average changeover takes approximately 93.7 minutes to complete,
where the standard deviation is 26.2. In this case the variation is very high, where
it is hard to determine for sure how long a changeover will take. Therefore, the
variation in time, probably reflects the high efficiency target set by the company.
When the company has implemented the improvement suggestions they feel are
being most valuable for the cause it is proposed that they should create a
standardized work routine for managing the press. This can be achieved by
investigating the sequence, how the activities are being made, developing
activities that are consistent and repeatable. By doing so an effective work
routine can be obtained (Lu & Yang 2015; Miltenburg, 2007). This could also
allow more operators to manage and understand how the press works.
Furthermore, this change can lead to better conviction of the company goal,
where the consistency could generate better understanding and product quality
for starters. Thus, this will directly lead to an increase in customer satisfaction,
66
which is crucial to achieve, in the competitive market. The company can use the
data collected from the case study, to make this a reality. When the press is
running smoothly, compared with the expectations and the standardized work
routine of the press is developed, the company could obtain a general plan and
approach that can be used in other environments. Meaning that one idea would
be to repeat the procedures on another machines that is considered to have
improvement opportunities.
With this in hand, the organization has several opportunities to achieve more
efficiency, positive outcomes and greatness by making some changes inside the
press. However it is easier said than done, where it is believed that innovative
ideas tend to be easier to implement in theory compared with in practice. In this
case the organization might experience challenges and resistance during the
implementation phase. The author has identified three categories that describes
the situation that might occur during the implementation of the change
initiatives. These categories are the walls, the re-thinkers and the brake-blockers.
The case study revealed that one of the biggest challenges during a certain
change initiative is in fact resistance. This corresponds very well with the
findings other researchers has done, where (Marchwinski, 2007; Jasti & Kodali,
2016; Oreg, 2003) identifies resistance as one of the biggest obstacles. However,
the resistance has a very wide meaning where it can arise due to several root
problems and places within the organization. The researchers (Marchwinski,
2007; Jasti & Kodali, 2016) also identifies the lack of know-how as a major
obstacle. In this case there is a lack of know-how inside the organization but
not in the same degree. Therefore, it is not possible to say that the lack of know-
how is one of the biggest obstacles in this case. The case study also revealed that
the walls are embedded deep inside the organizational culture, where the re-
thinkers and the brake-blockers could both be found among the blue-collars and
the managers. This means that that it is not possible to draw any conclusions
which camp belongs to which category. Moreover, it is also hard to tell which
camp is the biggest obstacle when it comes to change. The findings were in first
glimpse a bit surprising because the author thought the outcome would be
different, where it would be easy to distinguish the difference between the
groups after the data was gathered. One could argue that it is not optimal to
make this conclusion by only conducting six interviews and some observation
sessions. However, one of the requirements was that the persons should have
some type of experience of the excenter-press. In this case there were only a
few people that had the right experience and therefore only six interviews could
67
be conducted. Moreover it is important to point out that the outcome can vary,
where it all comes down to, how the interviews are conducted and with whom.
However, by following the evidence it is concluded that the findings are
arbitrary.
As of now, resistance is a well-known phenomenon and can be found in
different forms and areas inside an organization. Before, it was mentioned that
one obstacle for change is definitely the resistance and the traditional way is to
blame the blue-collars when resistance and challenges occurs inside the
organization (Ford, et al. 2008). This may have its origin from many generations
back, where it is believed that it is easier to blame persons that has a lower title
for problems occurring in the organization. Surprisingly, the resistance and the
challenges in this case could be found throughout the organization, meaning
that the blue-collars and the mangers both can be a contributor for the
resistance and the challenges that occurs. This corresponds very well with (Ford,
et al. 2008) statement, where the researchers identifies that the change managers
themselves can be the root problem for resistance. However, the author believes
that it is important to understand that the resistance can come up due to several
root problems. One of the root problems can be found among the brake-
blockers and is called fear. This corresponds very well with the outline from
Milgrom and Roberts (1995) that fear is a common contributor to resistance.
The brake-blockers tend to fear what the future will look like and that the
freedom in the daily operations might vanish, which is something Achanga et
al. (2006) also found. Therefore, it can be valuable if the employees are involved
in the change from day one, which can give them a better insight of what the
change is really about. It is believed that the resistance will slowly decrease,
where the acceptance will increase at the same time, by doing so.
Other fearing factors has been identified as well, such as stress and the
possibility of acquiring injuries. (Ford, et al. 2008; Kaster, 2013) discusses this
topic, where a higher output level and pressure from the management can create
stressful employees. The stress itself can make the employees take bad decisions,
which can harm themselves or the company. If an employee receives any type
of work related injury, the cost outlay might be higher than what is possible to
gain (Mansour 2014). Therefore, it can be beneficial if the organization does not
put too much pressure on the employees. However, it is important to
understand that by increasing the efficiency and the output level, does not
directly mean that the work load and the pressure from the management will
increase. It is believed that the improvement work could generate so the
68
activities will be done in an easier manner. This can instead be beneficial for the
employees, where it may eliminate backbreaking activities.
Resistance also occurs when the managers are doing their work without listening
to the blue-collars. The re-thinkers believes that communication is very
important during change initiatives and this is also something (Svensson, et al.
2007 refereed in Brännmark & Benn, 2012) mentions, that it is important that
the communication between the managers and the affected persons are there,
otherwise it can be difficult to sustain the change through time.
Misunderstandings can easily be eliminated by having a solid communication
with each other. For example if an improvement suggestion is not being
approved it can be beneficial to give an explanation to why it does not work.
This is something the re-thinkers believes is important to hold on to. The
improvement work is in the majority of time predetermined by the managers
without asking the blue-collar beforehand. It is important to achieve
sustainability in organizational change in the long-term and this is more likely to
be achieved by using a “bottom-up” approach (Abdul, et al. 2004). The reason
why is simple, the blue-collars are working with the processes on a daily basis
and who knows them better than the persons that are actually completing the
activities. Therefore, it can be beneficial to involve and ask the blue-collars for
any ideas on how to improve the change initiative, before the implementation
phase begins. Overall, by implementing this mindset a better harmony and
respect between one and other can be obtained.
Another root problem for resistance can occur when the change initiative does
not meet the expectations (Langstrand & Elg, 2012). In this case, the changes
themselves has not been implemented yet so it can be hard to determine
whether the changes met the expectations. However it is possible to determine
if there are any differences between the expectations throughout the
organization. From the interviews it could be determined that the expectations
between the re-thinkers and the brake-blockers varies a lot. The re-thinkers tend
to have higher hopes and expectations compared with the brake-blockers, on
what the change initiative will generate. The difference in expectations can
impact how individuals react to the change, where it can both be positive and
negative (Nilsson, 2010). By looking at the interviews it is possible to see a direct
link between the expectations and the education level of the participants. The
persons that tend to have higher expectations is also considered to have better
understanding on what SMED is and what can be obtained from it. Therefore
it can be beneficial to let everyone involved in the change initiative to obtain an
arbitrary degree of education, to get everyone on the same page, when it comes
69
to the expectations. This is something Achanga et al. (2006) discusses as well,
that it can be beneficial for the whole organization, to give the personal the
opportunity to learn and educate.
The category, the walls has for many years been influenced by a standard, where
change is seen as something negative. If the organization and their culture does
not accept change, it can be very hard to successfully implement it (Atkinson,
2010). This is something the organization should take seriously, where it can be
beneficial for the whole organization to redirect the mindset of all employees.
However, the evidence gives an indication that the organization is truly getting
better in this area, where the employees tend to have a higher acceptance for
change today compared to before. This is something the organization deserves
credit for, because it can be hard to obtain an overall acceptance of
improvement works (Weick & Quinn, 1999). It is believed that the organization
has obtained this by letting their employees be more active and involved during
change initiatives. This is something many researchers identifies, that the
engagement and involvement from the stakeholders is one important factor in
being successful and achieving sustainability in the change (Choi, 2011; Herron
& Hicks 2008; Liker 2004). By doing so it is important to listen to their opinions
and ideas, where the involvement generally makes the outcome better (Bergman
& Klefsjö, 2012; Svensson, et.al, 2007 refeered in Brännmark & Benn 2012). It
is common that the change initiative is successful as long as the managers
involves the blue-collars during the implementation phase. However, the
managers tend to go too far with the change initiative before involving the
employees. Therefore it, would be better if the managers involved those affected
in an earlier stage, to allow the blue-collars to be involved in the improvement
work. This factor is actually something, the re-thinkers and brake-blockers value
much.
The re-thinkers would also love to have more time to work with improvement
work. To have employees with this drive is something that is believed to have
huge potential for great outcomes. Therefore, it is highly important that the
organization takes this seriously, by taking advantage of the situation. How the
organization decides to work with it, is up to them but there are definitely facts,
which identifies that the organization is already taking advantage of the
situation. The organization has a goal that every employee should submit four
improvement suggestions yearly. This initiative is believed to be good and is
definitely one step to the right direction, however the organization does not take
the benefits of the opportunity to its full capacity. Unfortunately the
improvement suggestions piles up and their potential are not explored
70
thoroughly. The reason is because the managers does not have the financial
commitment to make this a reality and they can react both positive and negative
towards improvement suggestions, where it usually depends on, if the
suggestion needs capital or not. If the improvement suggestion needs capital the
managers are usually negative towards it. A common obstacle for SMEs are the
lack of resources, according to Achanga et al. (2006) so it is not surprising that
this came up during the case study. Financial commitments such as, capital and
funds are essential to allow the organization to expand and improve (Achanga,
et al. 2006). The organization has some resources they can use and the majority
of this goes to improvement work but they tend to forget that it is also
important to inform and educate the employees. One contributor to failure is
when the managers are focusing too much on the technical parts of the change
and forgets the importance of working with the human factors (Bovey & Hede,
2001). Therefore it is highly important to choose where to allocate the available
resources, which Bennet and Vaidya (2005) states as well. On the other hand,
you can ask yourself why the managers even bother to collect improvement
suggestions if they do not look through them thoroughly. If the organization
operates like this, the outcome can be the opposite from what the intentions
are. Dissatisfaction can arise among the blue-collars, where they might feel that
their improvement suggestions are being turned down. The organization would
maybe be better off, by gathering the budget to allow one person that only
worked with improvement work before gathering improvement suggestions,
which is something the re-thinkers also pointed out.
In current situation, the mangers tend to have a short-term mindset when it
comes to implementing changes. This goes hand in hand with the restriction
that comes from the owners, concerning financial investments. To be negative
towards financial investment can slow the possible growth for the organization
in the long-term. Sure, you cannot accept everything that needs capital but
sometimes a stoppage in a certain production line, which might be costly in the
short-term can in the long-term generate a positive cash-flow. Therefore it is
essential to have a mindset of long-term goals to be able to achieve greatness
and sustainability in the change. The organization should change their mindset
by setting long-term goals and the author believes that by following the four
pointers (Svensson et,al., 2007 refeered in Brännmark & Benn, 2012) states,
which can helpt the organization to change their mindset by achieving a
sustainable change process in the long-run.
“If you get the human to understand why changes are being made the
organization would get a tremendous force in the change work itself”. This is a
71
direct quote from one of the interviews, which indicates the importance in
transferring the reason behind choices and decisions made inside the
organization. By having a dynamic group that strives towards the same goal, the
success rate in implementing changes are believed to be higher. Therefore it is
highly important to transfer the underlying reason behind the change initiative
or the success rate can dramatically be reduced. Therefore, the management
must upscale the awareness and in this case, it means upscaling the awareness
of changeover time reduction and the techniques used to achieve this. This is
also something the managers believes they need to get better in because today,
few of them know what they want to do and achieve, where they tend to have
a hard time reaching the mass. The message should be understood by everyone
involved and therefore it is believed that the management should find a
pedagogical approach, where the intention is to describe the underlying reason
of the change initiative. Otherwise, the organization can have a hard time
implementing the change initiative due to resistance that may arise. However,
the blue-collars are more aware of what lean is and what the organization is
trying to achieve, compared as before but there are still room for improvements.
Furthermore, the brake-blockers want a better understanding of what
advantages that can be obtained from the change initiative.
In summary, the author believes that challenges and resistance will always occur
in organizations, because it is very hard to please everyone. However,
organizations can in fact make a proactive choice to work with organizational
change and to decrease the amount of challenges and resistance that might occur
inside the organization. It is important to be open-minded and to allow every
person that wants to make a difference be involved in organizational change or
change initiatives.
7. Conclusions
It is believed that the SMED methodology is a great lean tool to implement in
manufacturing industries that is covered by a high turnover rate of material and
if they have a goal to reduce the changeover time. In this case the methodology
has been implemented on an excenter-press in a manufacturing company, to
reduce the changeover time, obtain improvement suggestions and to determine
what positive factors the organization could obtain by implementing them. At
the moment the changeover process at the organization is complex and time
consuming. By analyzing the activities made during a typical changeover, many
improvement suggestions could be obtained. These suggestions are believed to
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have the opportunity to help the company to reduce the changeover time and
make them better in several areas. Thus, the evidence obtained theoretically
shows that the SMED principles, can indeed help organizations become better
and generate improvement opportunities for organizations. However, in this
case the possible impact in overall changeover time reduction is not massive
compared with the result obtained by other researchers, such as (Shingo, 1985;
Jit Singh & Khanduja, 2008; Mulla, et al. 2014). However, by looking at the
outcomes from an abstract perspective, the author identifies positive factors
that could be obtained by implementing the improvement suggestions:
Time and cost reduction that can be obtained from multiple sources.
Higher responsiveness towards the demand.
Higher flexibility.
Increased efficiency.
For companies it is important to work with organizational change and
continuous improvements to stay competitive. Unfortunately, it is common that
these changes tend to fail, where the implementation of the change initiatives
may encounter several obstacles along the way (Oreg, 2003; Weick & Quinn,
1999; Kraft, et al. 2015; Bovey & Hede, 2001; Marchwinski, 2007; Jasti &
Kodali, 2016). Overall, organizational change is a very interesting subject
because it is more to it than just implementing a change initiative and hope for
greatness and positive outcomes. With the traditional way of blaming the blue-
collars for disturbances during change initiatives and with the new way of
thinking, that the managers themselves can be the bad apple during change
initiatives (Ford, et al. 2008). It was simply believed that it would be interesting
and necessary to investigate how it may actually be inside a real organization.
During the literature study, the author found out that there was indeed lack of
knowledge and information regarding the question if the managers can be
contributors for the resistance and challenges that occurs during a change
initiative. In this case, the evidence gives an indication that the company could
experience obstacles and resistance before, during and after the improvement
suggestions are being implemented. Moreover, that both the blue-collars and
the managers can be contributors for the obstacles and resistance that may
evolve during the change initiative. Overall, the author identified different
obstacles and challenges that may come up along the way, by looking at the
73
organization from an abstract point of view, where the obstacles and challenges
are:
Resistance to organizational change from the mangers and the blue-
collars.
The root problems for resistance are fear of the unknown, stress
obtained from a higher output level, outcomes that does not meet the
expectations and in communication.
A small lack of know-how and what can be gained from the change
initiative.
Hard time describing the underlying reason behind the change initiative
to the blue-collars, which can generate resistance towards change.
Lack of financial commitment and resources to aid the change initiative
and help the company to expand and grow.
Lack of a long-term mindset and goals from the organization.
The overall conclusion is that the organization should work with continuous
improvements to stay competitive on the market. To do so, it is important that
the company works with the obstacles and challenges mentioned above in a
preemptive manner that might come up to light, during the change initiative.
Organizations should ask themselves if the traditional way of blaming the blue-
collars for the resistance and challenges is the fundamental approach to tackle
this manner, where the evidence from the case study identifies that the managers
themselves can be the brake-blockers. Moreover, the author believes that a
uniqueness in this research is the conclusion that it is important to describe the
underlying reason behind the change initiative to everyone involved. In the
future when the organization is working with organizational change, it is
proposed that the organization should follow the sustainability plan according
to (Svensson 2007, et.al, refeered in Brännmark & Benn 2012) to create one
path towards a more sustainable implementation of change initiatives. Overall,
the contribution of this research can help other organizations that struggles with
change initiatives, to maintain competitive or expand their position in the highly
competitive market.
74
7.1. Future research
With the master thesis conducted, the author can make pointers that the SMED
methodology is a relevant lean tool to use, if the goal is to reduce the changeover
time and obtain other positive factors. However, during change initiatives and
the implementation phase, challenges and resistance may occur inside the
organization. When it comes to future studies, the author believes that it would
be beneficial to see what the improvement suggestions could generate in
practice and not only see the theoretical outcome. Ideally, it is suggested that
the result might be better, by using the SMED method combined with the
Ishikawadiagram, to obtain an even thorough understanding and analysis of the
root problems. The author also believes that it could be valuable to measure the
technical lean maturity of the company before the change initiative is being
conducted, which the company can use as a basis to see if the change initiative
made things better or not. Another interesting approach would be to priorities
ergonomic improvements, by having them as the main goal, instead of focusing
on time reduction. Moreover, it would also be beneficial to conduct more
interviews at several organizations, to obtain a more widespread and reliable
result concerning organizational change. The last suggestion is to simply do the
same research but at a much bigger organization, to obtain the opportunity to
compare the mentality and the result from the bigger organization with the
findings gathered from a SMEs in this case.
75
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9. Appendices
9.1. Appendix 1
Change
What is your role here and for how long have you been working here?
What does change mean to you?
o How do you feel towards change?
o What major changes have occurred during your time here?
o How did it go?
o What was good respectively bad?
How do you look at changes, where your current way of working could
possibly change?
How does the company react to changes?
Improvement work
How does the company usually work with improvements?
How would you like your company to work with improvements?
What is needed to get you motivated when it comes to improvement
work?
SMED
What do you know about SMED?
o Why was it necessary for the company to implement SMED?
What are your expectations concerning what SMED could generate?
o What advantages and disadvantages can this give the company?
o What advantages and disadvantages can this give you?
Do you have any improvement suggestions for the excenter-press??
Do you have any general pointers you feel that you want to talk about?
82
9.2. Appendix 2
Mean min7.931
n
X
X i
i
Variance
3.6871
2
2
n
XX
S i
i
Standard deviation =
2.261
2
n
XXi
i
X= Value of the elapsed time of the changeover in minutes.
83
9.3. Appendix 3
Number Activity Internal External Time (s) Resources
1 Remove fasteners from the die X 210 Tools
2 Remove the die from the machine X 61 Truck
3 Return the die in its shelf location X 86 Truck
4 Leave the box with finished goods to its shelf space X 125 Truck
5 Remove the waste transport module X 41
6 Clean the waste transport module X 59 Cloth
7 Determine which product-plan to run X 15
8 Set the parameters for the changeover X 70
9 Feth ladder nr.1 and find the right tools X 60
10 Set the right stroke length (Frontside) X 36 Tools
11 Put back the tools and the ladder X 20
12 Feth tools and remove the conveyor X 10
13 Feth ladder nr.2 & climb X 13
14 Set the stroke length (From the side) X 28 Tools
15 return ladder nr.2 X 6
16 Fetch & measure so the right transport module is being used X 42
17 Return the tools X 7
18 Set the height for the press X 28 Rule
19 return ladder nr.1 X 6
20 Move a forklift which stands in the way X 20 Truck
21 Jump in the right forlikft and move a box that stands in the way X 16 Truck
22 Obtain the right die from the shelf X 100 Truck
23 Put the die into the machine X 86 Truck
24 Remove the old fasteners & attach the new ones X 88 Tools
25 Fetch the center clamp & fasten it X 21 Tools
26 Fetch a tool and pound the die to the right place X 19 Tools
27 Fasten the center clamp a bit X 28 Tools
28 Lower the press to the end position X 22
29 Fasten the center clamp X 19 Tools
30 Fasten the outer fasteners X 135 Tools
31 Ensure the stroke lengths position X 58
32 Move ladder nr.1 again X 21
33 Put the waste transport module in the machine X 52 Rule
34 Set the transport shaker on the right level/length from the press to the convoyer X 133
35 Determine which fastener to use for the waste transport module X 43
36 Take the fastener for the waste transport module & fasten it X 52 Tools
37 Measure if the right raw-material is near the machine X 24 Rule
38 Retrieve raw-material from the warehouse X 352 Truck
39 Remove the fasteners from the reel X 58 Tools
40 Reduce the radius of the reel X 11
41 Set the straightener X 86 Tools
42 Lift up the coil & push it in the reel X 120 Truck
43 Leave the stool where it belongs in the shelf X 46 Truck
44 Go & lock the gates X 24
45 Straigthen the radius of the coil X 37
46 Fasten the outer fastener for the reel X 39 Tools
47 Remove tape from the coil X 25
48 Pull the sheet into the straightener X 42
49 Adjust the straightener X 71 Tools
50 Obtain the nibbler & fasten it in the air hose X 41
51 Cut the sheet with the nibbler X 9 Nibbler
52 Adjuset the straightener again X 51 Tools
53 Eject sheet from the straightener X 25
54 Throw away sheet wastes X 33
55 Eject sheet from the straightener again X 41
56 Withdraw sheet into the feed machine X 344
57 Make a test wether the die is properly set X 109
58 Clean the die X 49 Magnet & Cloth
59 Ensure the quality of the product X 526
60 Unscrew all brackets from the die X 112 Tools
61 Push the die so it falls into place X 16
62 Fasten all brackets X 170 Tools
63 Feed some sheet into the die again X 80
64 Ensure the quality of the product X 199
65 Set the batch size & turn on the conveyor X 116
66 Try a small batch size to ensure the quality of the product X 63
67 Throw away the test parts X 15
68 Set the batch size X 8
69 Create boxes where the parts will be X 95
70 Fetch the boxes X 92 Truck
71 Fetch the trolley & hoist it to the right height X 70
72 Prepare for the start & press the starting button X 18
Total (min) 84.2
84
9.4. Appendix 4
krCS
hoursWCCS
C
krC
C
krT
C
hWW
hW
WWW
W
W
krIPST
krI
TSP
T
krSWS
W
krS
hh
dydrh
d
h
r
ch
ddy
d
ywdy
w
y
c
y
my
m
33650213*158*cost/yearin savings Total
158260*2*60
22.18**arin time/ye Savings
2s/daychangeover ofnumber Average
7.6460
22.18*213geoversaved/chanCost
min22.1885.395.042.13 timechangeover ofreduction Possible
2132080
442609
WCost/hour
20808*260*Whours/year Working
8hours/day Working
260days52*5*days/year Working
5daysdays/week Working
52weeksWeeks/year
42609413549102580291500cost/year Total
13549cost/year Insurance
102580kr0.3142*291500* tax/yearPayroll
%42.31100*3142.0 taxPayroll
29150026500*11*r Salary/yea
11weeksrmonths/yea Working
26500thSalary/mon
hy
hy
