Key takeaways
Short answer: Setup time is the clock on readying a single machine. Changeover is the entire product switch across the line — setup plus material change, first-good-part, and ramp-up to full speed. SMED reduces both, but if you only measure machine setup you miss most of the loss; changeover is where OEE Availability and Performance really bleed. See also oee for manufacturing.
SMED converts internal steps (done while stopped) to external (done while running) and streamlines the rest. Applied to a single machine it cuts setup; applied to the whole switch it cuts changeover — and the latter moves OEE far more.
A plant proud of 10-minute machine setups can still lose an hour per changeover to material handling, first-article delays, and slow ramp. Measure the whole changeover or you optimise the wrong clock.
Changeover hits Availability (line stopped) and Performance (slow ramp). Reducing it is one of the highest-leverage OEE moves on high-mix lines.
See how Fabrico captures this automatically on your lines — explore OEE for manufacturing or book a demo.
No — it spans the whole line plus first-good-part and ramp.
Both, by converting internal steps to external.
Changeover, measured end to end.
Within changeover — readiness is not done until good parts flow.
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