Machine Changeover Tracking — Reduce Downtime Between Jobs

2026-05-09

Track machine changeover times between jobs — identify which products and machines have the longest changeovers and reduce production downtime.

Your printing machine runs Product A for 4 hours. Then it takes 45 minutes to switch to Product B. Those 45 minutes are invisible — nobody tracks them, nobody questions them, and over a month they add up to 2 full days of lost production.

What Is Changeover Time?

Changeover is the time between the last good piece of one product and the first good piece of the next product on the same machine. It includes:

• Cleaning the machine
• Changing plates, dies, or molds
• Adjusting settings
• Running test pieces
• Getting QC clearance

Why Most Companies Don't Track It

1. It happens between jobs — nobody's job is to record it

2. It varies wildly — same machine, same product, different operator = different time

3. No system captures it — the production log shows Job A ended at 2:00 PM and Job B started at 2:45 PM, but nobody records what happened in between

What You Should Know

Per Machine

• Average changeover time this month
• Longest changeover (which product switch caused it?)
• Total hours lost to changeovers

Per Product Pair

• Switching from Product A to Product B takes 30 min
• Switching from Product A to Product C takes 90 min
• Why the difference? Can it be standardized?

Per Operator

• Operator X does the same changeover in 25 min
• Operator Y takes 55 min
• What's the difference? Training opportunity.

How to Track It

Step 1: Record the Changeover

When an operator finishes one job and starts setting up for the next:

• Select machine
• Select previous product and next product
• Record start time
• Record end time
• Note any issues (missing plates, cleaning required, QC delay)

Step 2: Dashboard Shows the Pattern

| Machine | Changeovers This Month | Avg Time | Total Hours Lost |

|---------|----------------------|----------|------------------|

| Printing 1 | 24 | 35 min | 14 hrs |

| Printing 2 | 18 | 52 min | 15.6 hrs |

| Lamination | 12 | 20 min | 4 hrs |

Printing 2 has fewer changeovers but takes longer each time — that's where to focus.

Step 3: Identify the Worst Transitions

| From → To | Avg Time | Count |

|-----------|----------|-------|

| Product A → Product C | 90 min | 6 |

| Product B → Product D | 75 min | 4 |

| Product A → Product B | 30 min | 12 |

The A→C transition is 3x longer than A→B. Why? Maybe it requires a full cleaning that A→B doesn't. Once you know, you can sequence jobs to minimize long changeovers.

The Impact

A factory running 30 machines with 3 changeovers per day at an average of 40 minutes each loses:

30 × 3 × 40 = 3,600 minutes = 60 hours per day

Reduce average changeover from 40 to 25 minutes and you recover 22.5 hours of production capacity per day — without adding a single machine.

Set It Up

Go to insights.flobri.com/build and describe:

"Operator records machine changeover with machine name, previous product, next product, start time, end time, and any issues. Dashboard shows average changeover time per machine, per product pair, and per operator."

Flobri tracks machine changeover times — per machine, per product switch, per operator — helping you identify and reduce the hidden downtime between jobs.