USE CASE
Changeover standard work that lives on the machine, not in the binder
A format change takes as long as it takes because the procedure exists in three people’s heads and in a binder in the office. The guard that has to come off first, the sensor that gets knocked out of position, the handwheel setting that is right for this format — those are facts about a place on a machine, and they survive best when they are stored at that place.
What is a changeover, and what is SMED?
A changeover is everything between the last good unit of one product or format and the first good unit of the next: strip out, change parts over, reposition, adjust, restart, run to quality. SMED — Single Minute Exchange of Die, developed by Shigeo Shingo in Japanese manufacturing — is the method for shortening it. SMED is usually taught as three stages, done in this order for a reason: separate internal elements from external elements; convert as much internal work as possible into external work; streamline what is left, on both sides. Almost everything useful in the method follows from stage one.
What is the difference between internal and external changeover elements?
An internal element is work that can only be done while the equipment is stopped. An external element is work that can be done while the line is still running — before the stop, or after the restart. Only internal elements consume changeover time.
Fetching change parts from the store
External — done while running. Nothing about it requires the machine to be stopped.
Staging parts, tools and consumables at the machine
External. The most common element performed internally by default.
Pre-setting a spare part to its known position
External. This is stage two in action: the setting work moves off the clock.
Removing the guard to reach the format part
Internal — requires the machine stopped and safe.
Removing and fitting the change part
Internal — the irreducible core of the changeover.
Repositioning a sensor, guide or stop
Internal — on the machine, with the machine down.
Trial runs and adjustment
Internal — and the element that varies most from person to person.
Cleaning and putting away parts
External, done after restart — but frequently done internally because the crew is already standing there.
Recording what was done
External — should never hold the line.
The distinction is not academic. A crew that moves only the staging and the put-away to external work has shortened the stop without changing a single mechanical thing about the machine.
Why does a changeover take longer than it should?
Rarely because anyone is slow. The recurring causes are informational.
The procedure is not written anywhere someone can follow it
It exists as competence in a few people. When those people are on another line, on nights, or have left, the changeover becomes a reconstruction exercise.
The written version is not specific enough to use
“Reposition the guide for the 500 ml format” assumes the reader already knows which guide and what “positioned” looks like.
The settings are rediscovered every time
If the correct position is not recorded as a position, it is found by trial and error after restart — internal time, every time, for every crew.
The sequence is only known by consequence
The guard that has to come off before the cover, the part that has to be slackened before it will lift. New people learn that order by hitting the obstruction.
External work happens internally
Often the largest recoverable block on the list, and it costs nothing but sequencing.
Nobody at the machine can see the binder
The document may be excellent. If it is in the office, in a 400-page manual, or on a shared drive, it is not present at the moment of use.
What changes when the changeover is anchored to the machine?
In MYREX, each machine is a high-definition 3D capture of the real equipment as it sits on your floor. Marks — pinned locations on the machine — hold the photos, video and notes that apply to that exact spot. The things a changeover depends on are spots: a fastener, a scale, a sensor face, a seating surface.
Which guide, which fitting, which sensor
Binder/shared drive: described in words, interpreted by the reader. MYREX: a point on the 3D capture — open it and you are looking at the thing.
What “correct position” means
Binder/shared drive: a measurement someone has to re-derive, or a memory. MYREX: a photo of the correct position, pinned to the position.
The order things come off in
Binder/shared drive: learned by hitting the obstruction. MYREX: a step-by-step guided procedure, with the capture of the machine alongside it.
Everything ever recorded at that spot
Binder/shared drive: not a question the binder can answer. MYREX: open the location and see it.
Damage found during the strip-down
Binder/shared drive: a verbal handover, or nothing. MYREX: raised on the spot from the 3D scene — creates a work order and a mark at the exact position, in one action.
The specific thing this buys you: the person doing their fourth changeover can find what the person doing their four-hundredth knows, by looking at the machine rather than by finding that person.
What does changeover standard work look like in MYREX?
The changeover is a procedure the crew runs in guided mode, step by step, with the machine’s 3D capture alongside it. The content that makes each step performable — the photo of the correct setting, the video of the fit, the note about the fastener that has to be slackened first — is pinned to the points on the machine those steps touch, so it is opened rather than described. Write the steps at the machine, not at a desk. Split the procedure the way SMED splits the work — external preparation as its own block that runs before the stop, internal work as its own block. Pin the settings as pictures: a photograph of a scale, a stop or a mark at its correct position is unambiguous in a way a written measurement is not. External work is preparation, and preparation is a scheduling problem rather than a documentation problem. The preventive maintenance (PM) calendar carries recurring events, and an event can be linked to a location on the machine — the right home for the recurring condition checks that changeover quality depends on: the change part that wears, the guide that has been shimmed, the seal that gets disturbed every time.
What about the format parts that keep causing trouble?
Open the spot and look at what has accumulated there. If the same seating surface has generated three abnormality tags in six months, that is a machine telling you where the changeover difficulty actually is — a pattern that is invisible when the record of each event is a separate line in a separate document. Completed work writes to the asset’s activity history and to an audit log secured by a SHA-256 hash chain, so what was done, where, and by whom survives the shift it happened on.
What actually ships today?
High-definition 3D capture of each machine
Shipped
Photos, video and notes pinned to exact locations on the machine
Shipped
Step-by-step guided mode
Shipped
Abnormality tags raised on the 3D scene, carrying the exact location
Shipped
Work orders — create, assign, complete
Shipped
Preventive maintenance (PM) calendar with recurring events linked to locations on the machine
Shipped
Asset pages with full activity history
Shipped
Report-a-problem escalation
Shipped
Media library
Shipped
Search across assets, marks, media, procedures, procedure steps and activity
Shipped
Manager dashboard — open, overdue, due-today and unassigned counts, with due dates
Shipped
Audit log, secured by a SHA-256 hash chain
Shipped
Attestation on completed work
Shipped
Per-step location anchoring of procedures
In development
Spanish (LatAm)
In development
If it is not in the table, this page is not claiming it — including changeover timing, downtime capture and equipment performance measurement, which are a different category of tool. Ask us directly about anything you need that is not listed.
Frequently asked
What is the difference between internal and external changeover time?
Internal elements can only be done while the equipment is stopped; external elements can be done while it is still running, either before the stop or after the restart. Only internal elements lengthen the changeover, which is why SMED starts by separating the two and then converting as much internal work to external as the equipment allows.
Does MYREX measure changeover time?
No. Measuring the duration of a changeover, and equipment performance generally, is what machine monitoring and OEE tools do. MYREX is maintenance execution software: it holds the procedure, the settings and the knowledge of the equipment, at the equipment.
Can we put our existing changeover procedure into MYREX?
Yes, as a step-by-step procedure crews run in guided mode, with the 3D capture of the machine alongside the steps. Photos, video and notes stay pinned to marks on that capture. The usual finding is that the existing document is accurate but not specific enough to follow, and that the specificity comes from putting it at the machine.
Who writes the changeover procedure?
The people who perform it, or at least revise it. A procedure handed down from a desk is followed for about three weeks.
We run many formats on one line. Does that change anything?
It makes the setting record the valuable part. Format-specific positions, stops and settings are pinned at the points they apply to, so the crew checks against a picture of the right condition instead of re-deriving it after restart.
See it on your own machine.
Bring a machine you already know is a mess to explain, and we will show you what it looks like inside MYREX.