Reimagining changeovers as a key value-adding business capability

Abstract

As market trends shift towards mass customization, manufacturers face pressure to build flexibility. This often translates into more frequent changeovers, often viewed as non-value-adding. Yet existing research overlooks the broader impacts of changeovers and their potential business value. This research explores these impacts and how they can be managed to generate business value. Findings indicate that changeovers affecting manufacturing performance through product loss, resource use and downtime. In the process industry, cleaning operations can be a substantial cost factor, raising a single changeover’s cost to $3000. However, changeovers can also provide strategic advantages such as flexibility, which are crucial for market competitiveness. Therefore, the value of a changeover closely tied to how its impacts are managed. This research introduces a definition for changeover capability and proposes a novel changeover value map to help companies assess their position and identify key areas for improvement.