Tooling Management — Who knew?

It was such a glorious spring morning yesterday that my colleague John Jones and I decided it would be rude not to take a blast across the Pennines to Wakefield and accept an invitation from CAD/CAM solutions provider Planit.

Planit were playing host to Swiss data management specialists Datos, producer of the WinTool application for tool and CNC data management. WinTool helps to solve a problem that I had hardly ever considered before, that of the huge amounts of tool components and assemblies in a modern machine shop.

Whenever I have seen CNC machines running in a production setting before, I've only ever given the most cursory thought to the tools beyond the fact that they're there, and they all do different jobs. How they reach the machine, how the operator knows that each tool is the right one, and how all the components that make up a tool end up in the right place at the right time (or not) has simply never arisen.

Now, that may be my naivety I confess, but following the presentation by Datos' Marc Holthuizen and UK-based WinTool Consultant Malcolm Dearing I realised that I am not alone. There seems to be a distinct lack of science behind the tool management in a number of companies — from operators keeping 'their' tools locked in a cupboard for fear of never seeing them again, to complex and expensive 'workarounds'.

The presentation we witnessed wasn't simply for our benefit — it was a demonstration to workshops from the automotive sports industry who are facing some challenges with their current tool management solution. For workshops from the automotive sports industry, knowing if a tool exists, if they own any, where those tools are and in what state of repair could potentially save the company significant time and money.

One company that has implemented the system is Lotus Renault Formula 1 team — Marc and Malcolm continued on to the Whiteways Technical Centre in Oxforshire to install the application.

Although the initial time-investment into such a system is substantial if you want a truly comprehensive management solution, the pay-offs are reportedly huge. It will be interesting to see if either of the workshops from the automotive sports industry implement WinTool and what effect it has on their production facility.

We will be featuring a more comprehensive breakdown of tool management options in coming issues of the magazine.