Ideas for Quick Changeovers

[danrudolph]

We've been running the same bar stock size for the bulk of our work, however, this is going to change and I am looking for ideas to minimize adjustments to get the first part off.

Swapping collets, adjustment of collet forces, adjusting the knockout and bar feeder are my big time eaters....

I am a follower of Shingo's SMED principles, but without reinventing the wheel: what clever things have you come up with to reduce the change over time on a swiss?

[ProProcess]

This is a slippery slope in that you don't want to "give away the farm".
Trying to help someone by sharing the ideas and methods you've developed to become more efficient is akin to giving away your competetive advantage.
Not that people here or othe places do not want to help, its just a fine line line to tread.

If you're an implementer of SMED than you're probably ahead of the pack as it is.
I would offer these...
Be organized.
Have good (current!) documentation on things that are finicky.
Train the operators and set-up people all the same so that differnet people can do differnet aspects of the change over.
This will allow for people to get pulled away from a setup while someone else can step in and take over.
Have a check list of what's done, as people ebb and flow through the change over, a check list will prevent "back tracking".

These are just a few, but you get the idea.
Good luck.

[glenthemann]

Pro process is right in that many here arent going to want to or be willing to give away their secrets.

But there is no fast way around changing out all your collets, setting the pressures, correct knockout etc.

I do full changeovers, tooling included in about half a day, depends on the job, we all know sometimes things just dont work the way they *should*

The only thing you can do to reduce time is to just run everything at the same material size, but then youre wasting material and that time savings doesnt translate into money savings but rather losses.

heck, this may even border on giving away my secrets, but there is no way you could even just run the same size stock for all jobs without adjusting things along the way. Material variances of .001 **** these machines if you have your guide set really stong, I wiped out a guide bushing collet the other day because some moron in the shop included material from another bundle into what he ground and the material was almost .002" bigger. Even if all the material you get is all the exact same size, youre gonna want to clean out things eventually which is a changeover in a sense. And the extra care you take into your changeovers and cleaning things and making sure everything is running smooth translates into longer and better machine life.

Being properly trained, efficient and organized is the best way, and the only way imo. If it takes forever to change out 3 collets, set 3 diff pressures and stick in a correct knockout, then there is something fundamentally wrong with you or your guys, or someone is ****ing the dog. If whoever is doing the changeovers is new to the machines then expect them to not be super fast until they get a real handle and a rhythm with the machines. Kind of like learning to walk, at first you stumble and fall.. but after some experience you can run.

ps. I have no idea what these smed priniciples are, but I would venture that most of them are complete common sense.