Last time, I reviewed some quick change concepts I go into. I usually cover these in the classroom. 

I don't go into much "how to" in the classroom, apart from describing the difference between internal and external steps and brainstorming some examples of each.  The idea of "external vs. internal steps" is an important tactic and is worth spending some time on. 

(Make sure you understand it yourself: external steps are those that can be done external to the setup, i.e., before or after the setup, i.e., before you turn equipment off or after you turn equipment back on, i.e., while the equipment is running.  Internal steps are those that must  be done with the equipment turned off, i.e., they cannot be done  before or after the setup.  The tricky part can be identifying steps that are presently done as an internal step that should be done as an external step.  I was once covering this concept with a group and they mentioned that taking tooling back to the tooling crib after removing it from the machine was an internal step because company policy was that you didn't get the tooling for the next run until you turned in the tooling from the last run.  I told them that carrying tooling to or away from the equipment was always and forever an external step and that plant policy was about to change...and it did.)

The logistics of a changeover workshop are a bit tougher than those for a 5S workshop.  You can make a 5S workshop as short (or as long) as you like...just change the size of the area that you actually go to 5S.  I've done multi-day 5S workshops on the one hand and two-hour workshops on the other, including actual time on the shop floor.

In the case of changeovers, though, you need to build your time around how long a changeover actually takes. If we're talking about a 30-minute changeover, we can get a lot done in a half-day class.  If we're talking about a four-hour changeover....we're going to need more time.  In either case, we're going to want to do more than one changeover...one to video-tape (or observe) and one or more to try out the improvements. 

Another factor that impacts changeover reduction workshops is that fact that not all changeovers are created equal.  My own experience is that changeovers on a specific machine can vary by several orders of magnitude.  A change in run settings that takes 20 seconds might be considered a changeover just as a complete tooling change that takes four hours is.  I usually like to get at the most complex, longest, most difficult changeover, figuring that any improvements wel make on that one will also be relevant to other, easier changeovers.

A third factor is this question: Do we schedule the workshop around the changeover or the changeover around the workshop?  In other words, do we wait until the changeover we want to study and improve is on the production schedule and hold our workshop then?  (The advantage here is that we're more likely to get an accurate look at how the changeovers really get carried out.) Or do we schedule our workshop and "perform" a changeover at that point.  (The advantage here is scheduling flexibility.)  I've tended to to the latter, but the changeovers conducted under such circumstances tend to have an artificial feel about them.  Still, the big impediments  can get identified and addressed.