Eco-effective changeovers; changing a burden into a manufacturing capability

Abstract

Changeovers stand as a critical operation in the manufacturing companies, however in their current state with significant economic and environmental impacts they are more of a burden then a capability. Market pressures and sustainability requirements soon will push companies even harder to convert this burden into a manufacturing capability. Purpose of this paper to investigate the value definition of changeovers, type of impacts and possible improvement opportunities from an industrial perspective. Due to the lack of data availability on changeover impacts in the current literature, a case-study was conducted through interviews and onsite observations. Current findings indicate that, changeovers may be considered as value adding in some cases. Moreover, from an environmental perspective water consumption, wastewater treatment, energy use, chemical use and product loss were the type of impacts that were frequently brought up, whereas loss of production time was highlighted as the main economic impact. Additionally, companies believe that both design and operational changes can provide improvements for their current systems. Current findings represent the issues within the type of industries included in this early stage of the study and therefore may change in the later stages of the project. This paper highlights important aspects of changeover operations that are commonly neglected in industrial practice while improvements towards these aspects could provide substantial economic benefits while improving companies' environmental performance.