Single Minute Exchange Die (SMED): A sustainable and well-timed approach for Bangladeshi garments industry

Abstract

Bangladesh is the second largest Ready-Made Garments (RMG) exporting country after China. The cost of cotton and other raw materials, labor cost, and subsidiary cost increased much in post COVID-19 with the comparison of pre-Covid-19 times, but from the prospect of buyer's price is not increasing that much. In this context, our study focused on the RMG's very first time extensive Quick Changeover (QCO) process to minimize cost reduction as well as wastage and time using Single Minute Exchange Die (SMED). Initially, concentrated on the learning period to make acknowledge the changing phase of one style to another. At the same time, tried to figure out the overall weekly performance before and after implementing QCO on the floors, efficiency, before and after implementing QCO hit rate and time consumption, and wastages. According to the case study, floor one had the best average weekly performance, action achieved percentage, and efficiency performance of 57%, 48%, and 46%, respectively, among the five, analyzed floors. From the investigated five floors, the third one had the lowest weekly performance, percentage of actions completed, and efficiency, at 52%, 40%, and 34%, respectively. In the case of hit styles, floor two and floor five both achieved 83% after QCO apply in the floors. During the QCO, the highest production loss on floor one was the alarming sign which was 21,940 pieces and on floor three loss production was the lowest 2605 pieces after QCO implementation.

Keywords

• Single Minute Exchange Die (SMED)
• Quick changeover (QCO)
• Sustainability
• Garments industry
• Waste/cost-minimizing