Achieving Lean Changeover: Putting SMED to Work
John Henryis widely known as theChangeover Wizardfor his work in making changeover time disappear. His company, Changeover.com, has assisted many companies in a wide variety of packaging, assembly, processing, and other manufacturing industries since its founding in 1996.After a nearly eight-year stint in the US Navy, John went to work for Alcon Laboratories as maintenance supervisor, eventually rising to manager of Facility Operations. He left to purchase Automation Sales, a company dedicated to the design, sale, installation, and service of automated packaging, assembly, and manufacturing machinery.In the early 1990s, John realized that changeover was not a necessary evil and could be improved. He began helping some of his machinery clients and Changeover.com was born. Since then, Changeover.com has provided training and consulting assistance internationally to a variety of companies in a variety of industries.John Henry has master’s degrees in industrial management, interpersonal relations, and business education. John has been a classroom and online adjunct instructor at the Southern New Hampshire University Graduate School of Business since 1982. He teaches packaging technology at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico.John has published many articles in the industry press and is a frequent speaker at national packaging conferences. He was previously a contributing writer forFood & Beverage Packagingmagazine. He is currently a contributing writer forPackaging Digest. John’s other books includeMachinery Matters(2011) andThe Handbook of Packaging Machinery(in press).John may be contacted at johnhenry@changeover.com. He is always interested in discussing changeover.