What's Better? Having Multiple Tooling Suppliers Or Having One Or 2 Mainly?

[kd4gij]

The reason I asked is it might pay off to have an independent tooling consultant to come in and look at what type machine and material you are running. They advise what tooling would work the best and where to buy at the best price.

 

[Charcole]

Since February of this year one of the things my boss wanted me to do was to improve our tooling around the shop and start implementing the "5S" structure.

I shopped around and was able to get inserts for various turning from Sowa Tool and holders as well, as they have an online ordering system and can deliver next day and also offer tooling at a lower cost it has helped out but for some of our more exotic materials require higher end inserts I have used a couple other suppliers. Mitsubishi, Sandvik, Kyocera, Sumitomo and Walter (milling).
I find each one has things to offer and we can benefit from. We have started using some high feed mills but now a question has been raised about them ruining the ways on our CNC due to the multiple passes the use due to only taking a .035-.040 DOC at such a high feed rate.
Do you guys run these or do you find its just as economical and safer for the machine life to use a normal style face mill but take deeper DOC and less passes?

If the lube system stays in working condition and you don't have "I'm just here for a paycheck" employee's who can keep way covers free of debris and not crash the machines there is not much to worry about. The only deciding factor when I consider high speed cutting or not all depends on the mood I was in when I wrote the program.

 

[astjp2]

Since February of this year one of the things my boss wanted me to do was to improve our tooling around the shop and start implementing the "5S" structure.

I shopped around and was able to get inserts for various turning from Sowa Tool and holders as well, as they have an online ordering system and can deliver next day and also offer tooling at a lower cost it has helped out but for some of our more exotic materials require higher end inserts I have used a couple other suppliers. Mitsubishi, Sandvik, Kyocera, Sumitomo and Walter (milling).
I find each one has things to offer and we can benefit from. We have started using some high feed mills but now a question has been raised about them ruining the ways on our CNC due to the multiple passes the use due to only taking a .035-.040 DOC at such a high feed rate.
Do you guys run these or do you find its just as economical and safer for the machine life to use a normal style face mill but take deeper DOC and less passes?

Wait for the boss to get you to start marking that clocks are uncalibrated time keeping instruments and where your phone is on your desk. 5s in moderation is ok but my plant is ridiculous. The site director is inspecting cubicles for 5s, not where he should be focusing. Wait until you start throwing out things you will need a month from now because its been sitting too long and they don't want to store it then buy new later....5s is wasteful....

 

[derf]

I don't know what "5s" is, but no doubt it sounds like something invented by a bean counter....
I have one main supplier, and several specialty vendors. If one don't have it, usually the other does. If the others don't have it, it's time for plan "B".

 

[HarleyRiderNV]

I think 5S has some advantages, having the common everyday cutting tools at each operators machine will be beneficial that's for sure. Being in a custom machine shop we do have a lot of specialty turning and milling tools that not every machine needs.

I think I'm going to start leaning towards one main supplier and then having a couple other ones for specialty tooling. Seems to be the best for our situation.

Thanks guys

 

[joshua43214]

From your description, it sounds like a single primary supplier and one or two secondary suppliers is best. In the long run, you gain efficiency and lower cost using a single supplier even if some of the items from that supplier cost more. When you start shopping around for a better price, you are neglecting some other duty, so not only have you increased the cost of the part/tool by your man hours shopping, you have increased the overhead of the shop itself by not doing some other important duty. Using a primary dealer also allows you to call in "favors" when you need something dealt with in a more timely fashion.

In my opinion, reliability is far more important than price, this is doubly true if your boss wants to move into just in time process from 5S. You will start taking massive losses when stuff arrives late or broken.

5S does not scale down well to job shops, there is just too much variation between one job and the next, and one worker to the next. Work flow on the other hand has a huge impact on profit. Every extra foot the material has to move or the worker has to walk directly impacts the cost of overhead. A lot of shop owners have a "it only takes a second to walk over there..." attitude about machine, tooling, and material placement. Fixing work flow will have a bigger impact on profit than 5S will in a job shop.

Have you considered getting one of the tooling reps to come out and try to sell you on tooling? They will try to sell you something top of the line and expensive. You can take the sales pitch to the boss and use it as leverage to hire an independent person to make recommendations about tooling vs. machine wear.