What process are you using, solid wire, flux core with gas, or flux core without gas? What type of shielding gas? How thick is the metal? What type of welding machine? What are your Voltage and Wire Speed settings (even the approximate position of the dial, like 1 o'clock, if your not sure)? Your right, the company should have some parameters established.
Proper parameters for GMAW process can be determined knowing the wire size, shielding gas, and metal type & thickness.
Maximum speed can be achieved in spray transfer; practical if you are hand welding flat >1/8" or vert down <3/8" thick steel... I may be off on the vert down max thickness. Time spent in mastering the technique is amply rewarded by notable speed and penetration benefits.
It would also be somewhat helpfull to verify the OCV with a Volt meter as well as to verify the wire feed rate... it only takes a couple minutes, but it insures that you really are providing power IAW the laws of physics that govern welding processes, and not merely trying to.
On a tangent;
You are right in trying to understand what is going on with your welding parameters.
The common use of "heat" to describe the volt setting is confusing if you try to apply it to those laws that concern electricity. There is no "Watt" adjustment knob. If you think of a static shock you get from walking across a carpet, the voltage could easily exceed a thousand Volts and yet there is no real harm done to your finger. If you think of your fuze box and the fuxes or breakers calibrated in Amps, and how the old type fuzes actually heated to where they melted (or "fused") you would more correctly understand what actually determines the heat in an electrical circuit such as a welding arc. The feed control of a GMAW power supply adjusts the amperage in a calibrated proportion to, and along with, the speed of the wire feed.
I think of it like this:
Arc physics determine what adjustments in the volts or amps will actually accomplish; the shielding gas acts to modify the arc physics according to its composition, and the diameter of the electrode determines the amount of energy necessary to reach a given level of transfer, or physical reaction, within the arc.
There are various combinations of adjustments to these variables that may serve to make an acceptable weld; only one is optimum and best serves all your important interests and concerns.
A complete and accurate comment on who was right about parameter adjustments is not a short one.
With this in mind, a conversation with an expert in sloving exactly the kind of industrial problems you are experiencing would be a help, and doing so is convenient; log on to www.weldreality.com, explore everything, which should clarify some issues, and post appropriate questions under the thumbs up/thumbs down icon ("weld questions", opinions, or something like that). I suspect solving the problems at the plant will involve more than merely truning a knob on your welder, but it translates into take-home pay.
Regards
d