Beavers—changing to low inventory manufacturing

Abstract

This paper is in two sections. The first outlines the case history of how Beaver Machine Tools of Norwich introduced just-in-time manufacturing techniques as a lifeline to survive in its highly competitive market. Following a successful pilot in sheetmetal the full implementation was introduced including: supply, GT cells, set-up reduction, quality improvement and the simplification of systems and procedures. The second section focuses on a special project developed by production engineering to convert a normal CNC machine into a zero set-up machine using low technology. This gave Beavers the ability to manufacture very small batch sizes on short lead time in line with both JIT and OPT philosophies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

JOE BOOTH

This was carried out while the author was with Price Waterhouse.