Abstract

Many Small to Medium Enterprises suffer large amounts of downtime due to poor changeover performance. This is because jobs are unplanned and standardized processes have not been implemented. As part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Arc Energy Resources Ltd, a specialized welding company, and the University of Exeter, UK, research was carried out into changeovers and past papers were critically analyzed. Arc Energy Resources Ltd offers a service to ‘clad’ free issue material, therefore all products are one off bespoke products or small batch products. Value Stream Mapping, Production Funnels and Process Maps were used to identify areas of improvement by interrogating the process. Removing external processes from the production time (SMED) created long term time and cost savings.