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28 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2026 What Is SMED? If you're like me, SMED is a new term. Even though I've been around Lean manufacturing principles, I hadn't encountered the SMED idea. The idea is to find ways to optimize changeovers that take under 10 minutes to complete. The term emerged from the development of TPS at Toyota. Shigeo Shingo wrote the authoritative book on the subject, A Revolution in Manufacturing: The SMED System. James Womack also developed a SMED summary, published by the Lean Enterprise Institute. The Hidden Cost of Setup Time At a typical high-mix EMS facility operating multiple SMT lines, a standard changeover often includes material preparation, feeder loading, machine setup, program verification, tooling changes, first article inspection, and process validation. While these activities are necessary, the way they are carried out often results in significant downtime. In many facilities, this process consumes between 60–120 minutes per changeover. For a line performing four changeovers per day, that can translate into more than seven hours of downtime every day on a single line. Across multiple lines and multiple shifts, the lost capacity becomes enormous. The challenge is that many organizations view setup time as an unavoidable cost of doing business. In reality, much of that downtime can be eliminated. Understanding SMED in Electronics Manufacturing The foundation of setup reduction comes from SMED. The core principle is simple. First, separate setup activi- ties into two categories: • Internal setup: Tasks that can only be performed when the machine is stopped • External setup: Tasks that can be completed while the ma- chine is still running The objective is to move as much work as possible from internal to external setup. In an EMS environment, this distinc- tion becomes extremely powerful. Material pulling, feeder preparation, tooling staging, program validation, and setup verification can often be