Birmingham City University and Daventry Metal Products Limited KTP 24_25 R2

A small metal-parts manufacturer is embedding a set of rapid-change techniques and 3D-printed custom components into its robotic welding cells to slash the time it takes to switch from making one product to the next. The problem is straightforward but costly. When a factory needs to reconfigure its welding robots for a new batch of parts—say, switching from a tractor bracket to a chassis mount—workers must manually adjust heavy steel fixtures, a process that can take hours or even days. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), that downtime eats into profit and makes them less competitive against larger firms that can afford dedicated production lines. This project tackles that bottleneck by combining Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) principles—a lean manufacturing method—with reconfigurable fixturing and 3D-printed nylon or carbon-fibre inserts that snap into place. If successful, the company could cut changeover times from hours to minutes, allowing it to run smaller, more frequent batches without losing efficiency. The wider impact is a practical, low-cost blueprint that other UK precision-engineering SMEs could adopt, strengthening the resilience of domestic supply chains for sectors such as automotive, aerospace, and agricultural machinery.