A Structural Literature Review of the Single Minute Exchange of Die: The Latest Trends

Nowadays, the manufacturing industry is increasingly globalized and competitive, where the quality, cost, variety and fulfillment of delivery deadlines are fundamental factors for the customer. Therefore, to better meet these demands companies need to find strategies to make their processes more flexible and efficient. In the modern industrial environments the elimination of waste in order to concentrate as much as possible on value-added activities often leads to a reduction in the downtime of equipment. In addition, product diversification and reduced orders lead companies to have to optimize their setup processes on the equipment to produce the different required references. Making the setups faster is to keep the machine with less downtime, while converging with the need to decrease non-added value operations. One way to achieve the reduction of setup changeover time is through Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED). The goal in this paper is to perform a brief literature review regarding the SMED methodology which is addressed throughout several scientific fields, but most often in scientific publications in the fields of engineering and management. As a result, a widespread number of research papers from distinct authors are utilized to achieve the objectives of the current study. The time range for this study is from 2007 till 2018 and the selection includes journal, conference proceedings and book chapter papers. A descriptive analysis of the results is then made through charts and tables which are utilized to enrich the content and to offer a practical and simple presentation.