Project Objective

Safe-Way's production rate has been lower than desired. Their current method is scheduling orders per Earliest Due Date (EDD), which involves manufacturing orders one day prior to the load date. An area for opportunity is to increase production by extending the scheduling window to three days before the load date in order to batch similar orders together which can reduce changeovers. Sending larger volumes of orders each day from weekly batching led to the decision of decreasing total changeover times that stop otherwise continuous flow lines.  

Downtime from changeovers is spent switching out color, die and width of sections. For instance, changing the color of a coil from white to bronze takes 6 minutes on average. Because of this, batching orders on a given day over the scheduled time frame can lead to a significant reduction in total changeover time over both lines and a larger percentage of productive time. This allows Safe-Way to take on a greater volume of orders by meeting capacity more often.