ABSTRACT
In recent years the trend has been towards a customer demand for increased product variety at lower costs. As a result of this a number of techniques have been adopted in order to ensure company productivity and profitability. Rather than run large batches and hold a high level of stock and work in progress (WIP), small batch and Just in time (JIT) manufacture are becoming the norm in many sectors within industry. These require the processes to be quickly and accurately changed from one product type to another. As a result of this, set-up
reduction (SUR) should be regarded as a high profile business objective. Not only does SUR affect the batch sizes, inventory and costs, but it has also been seen to have a significant effect upon the maintenance of machines and the quality of the goods produced together with providing new commercial opportunities (Shingo, 1985).
