Every company is feeling the pressure to be more responsive to the needs of their customers, to repsond to the increased competition in the global marketplace, and to adjust to ever-shortening product life cycles. Today, the most agile manufacturing organizations are using a reductiion in their set-up times to capture the competitive advantage that increased agility offers. Although many companies have made impressive strides axross the board by implementing a Just-In-Time philosophy and by cutting down their response times, the positive effect reducing set-up time has on every subsequent operation is remarkable. Set-Up Time Reduction is a timely, authoritative, and practical book on how to make the initial steps of the manufacturing process faster, more efficient, and easier on the bottom line. Set-up time reduction program managers and individual team members will find ideas for: Adopting a team approach to reduce set-up times--including concepts for brainstorming solutions. Monitoring safety during implementation. Avoiding the pitfalls of a set-up time reduction program.