Clamps Gain a Grip on Die-Change Efficiency

Consecutive years (2013-2014) of significant growth in home-appliance sales had the Whirlpool Cleveland (TN) premium cooking operations plant pushing hard to keep up with demand. The welcomed flood of work, however, contributed to a perfect storm that kept managers on their toes to stay atop the rising tide of activity.

First, the plant was relatively new and experiencing some growing pains. Christened in 2012, the showcase facility welcomed hundreds of new employees, creating a training challenge. And, thousands of stamping dies were moved in, along with dozens of presses with varying tonnage capacities.

Sound die-change practice starts with well-organized workstations. To that end, Whirlpool is customizing Creform material-handling carts to organize the new Hilma hydromechanical clamping nuts and accompanying bolts, to provide visual cues to die setters and press operators.

Moving several production lines across town and adding new processes in the new facility, all while keeping up with consumer demand for the plant’s premium cooking products was a significant task. Achieving the task included much hard work, and the plant was rewarded with steadily improving productivity measures.

Says fabrication manager Jim Stewart:

“While a lot of our measures have improved significantly this year, we recognized several opportunities for even further improvements in a number of areas.”

The Press-Shop Project

January 12, 2015, marks the date when Stewart and value-stream director Gene Sparks sponsored the plant’s Press Shop project. The team set out to bring continuous improvement in areas including:

• Error-proofing all die changes;

• Ensuring that safety checklists are used for all startups, changeovers and shutdowns;

• Nurturing a culture of safe practices;

• Building a robust safety-training program for new and temporary employees;

• Properly maintaining equipment and keeping work areas clean; and

• Ensuring proper ergonomics for workers with differing physical abilities.

“We developed 29 different initiatives to improve those six target areas,” explains process engineer Ted Webb, press-shop capability coach and a member of the primary project team. “Among them were several action items targeting die changes, including creating a die-setter job description.”

Chief among the die-change-related action items was improving the process for die clamping and unclamping. Challenges here included ensuring consistent torque when tightening bolts, and finding a tightening/untightening method independent of operator size and strength.

“We’re averaging more than 100,000 changeovers per year,” says Stewart. “On our six-press stainless line, for example, we might change each press 50 times per week—offering a huge opportunity for increasing efficiency.”