An Instructional Program to Support Early Equipment Management in a Manufacturing Company

The fast pace of change in the modern world forces companies to manufacture new products in a short amount of time with the best technologies available in the market. For this reason, new manufacturing equipment is implemented in the shop floor with the aim of a vertical production ramp-up after the installation. Nevertheless, many problems, which were not initially taken into account, arise causing delays during the start of production. In the first part of the paper, an overview of Early Equipment Management will be presented. This methodology has the aim of making competitive installations through the anticipation of the problems that may arise during equipment’s life and the main goal is to start the production in the shortest possible time. In the second part of the paper, a case study concerning a manufacturing plant will be described. Taking advantage from the installation of a new welding robot, an instructional program for workers has been implemented to reduce the learning time for the equipment setup and for assembling different parts of the products. This will allow a fast rampup and waste reduction.