Level 1 - less waiting time with predicitve tool management

The red light of the machine tool is flashing, the spindle is not running – is your machine waiting for a cutting tool?

With the increasing complexity of machining and an escalating part mix, cutting tool management plays an even more important role than before. In the long run, every minute adds up to affect a shop’s productivity. This means that machine stops caused by missing tools, tool loading errors or worn out tools are something that have to be minimized. In this blog series we present the math behind productivity related to cutting tools and explain how to implement the best tool management practices in four steps – today focusing on the very first of them.

First, let's look at machine waiting time. Here's an example of how waiting times affect productivity:

A company has 4 machine tools.

Each machine runs 6,000 hours a year
= 24,000 machining hours a year

There is an average of 4 hourly tool changes per machine
= 96,000 tool changes a year

The operator is immediately available 90% of the time,
meaning that in 10% of the tool changes there is a waiting time
= 9,600 tool changes with waiting time

If the waiting time is averagely 10 minutes, it would mean
= 1,600 hours of yearly waiting time.

What is the cost of 1,600 idle hours?

 

Read the full blog post and learn more about the first step in implementing best practice in tool management and thus significantly increase your machine utilisation and use your personnel resources more wisely.