Since being founded in 1978, US Synthetic has been an industry leader in diamond producing capabilities. In order to remain competitive in the industry, US Synthetic demands a flexible manufacturing schedule with the shortest possible lead times. One of the largest losses in US Synthetic’s manufacturing schedule has been the time required to exchange a set of dies on its salt presses. US Synthetic has recruited BYU Capstone Team 28 to reduce the time it takes to change the die on a salt press from 30 minutes to 8 minutes or less.

By focusing on the upper punch, the core rod, and the adjustments, the team achieved single-minute change of die with the design being capable of implementation across multiple presses. One of the main challenges in the design was maintaining concentricity. In order to overcome this problem, the design consisted of having an upper punch with a stationary base and removable tip. The base can then be concentrically aligned and bolted in place, not needing to be moved again. With this aligned piece, the tips can be exchanged rapidly, without needing to be realigned. In order to facilitate a quicker changeover for the core rod, the same concept that was used on the upper punch was implemented. Using this concept requires fewer parts to be removed. The third change was to track the adjustments so that operators could hone in on the correct settings without having to guess like they previously did. For this, the team installed an encoder and a digital read-out. The team successfully reduced the time spent on changing dies by 73% making US Synthetic’s production line run more efficiently.