Changeovers are a necessary part of manufacturing, but they reduce productive machine time. MxAPS helps minimize unnecessary changeovers by sequencing compatible production orders together whenever possible.

Reducing changeovers can improve machine utilization, increase throughput, and shorten overall production time.

How Changeover Reduction Works

During scheduling, MxAPS evaluates the characteristics of each operation alongside other scheduling constraints.

When multiple operations share the same Setup Elimination Code, MxAPS attempts to schedule them consecutively so the existing machine setup can be reused.

For example, instead of scheduling jobs in this order:

• Stainless Steel
• Aluminum
• Stainless Steel

MxAPS may produce a more efficient schedule by grouping the stainless steel jobs together before switching to aluminum.

Other Scheduling Constraints

Reducing changeovers is one of several optimization goals.

MxAPS also considers:

• Material availability
• Machine availability
• Routing dependencies
• Working calendars
• Production priorities

If another constraint prevents similar jobs from being grouped together, MxAPS produces the best achievable schedule while respecting those constraints.

Benefits

Reducing unnecessary changeovers can help:

• Increase machine utilization.
• Reduce setup time.
• Improve production throughput.
• Decrease downtime between jobs.
• Produce more efficient manufacturing schedules.

Best Practices

To get the most benefit from changeover reduction:

• Configure meaningful Setup Elimination Codes.
• Set appropriate Idle and Absolute Allowance values.
• Assign Setup Elimination Codes consistently across similar operations.

Well-configured setup elimination allows MxAPS to automatically group compatible work and reduce unnecessary machine changeovers during scheduling.