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



## HarleyRiderNV (Oct 29, 2015)

I've been trying to find the best way to improve our shops tooling situation without be biased as to whom I shop around to, however I'm wondering if it is better and more efficient to instead of using say 5 different companies and distributors to cut down and use 2 that I can get more affordable and have a better relationship with.

What do other people find works best for their shop?


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## JimDawson (Oct 29, 2015)

I normally use just one vendor.  I get good service, good pricing, and quick delivery.  If I need something that they don't carry then I have to look elsewhere.  It would seem that 1 or 2 vendors would be the most efficient.


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## RJSakowski (Oct 29, 2015)

The global company that I worked for recently was required of having multiple vendors by its ISO 9000 quality system.  The rationale was that if one of them was unable to provide the necessary goods and/or services, there was a fallback.  However, the downside of that reasoning is that if you divide your purchases between two or more vendors, the impact of your business on any one of them is less.  This is particularly true for small businesses.

Giving increased business to a vendor with the expectation of improved service from them only works well if you  have a personal relationship with the vendor.  When working for a much smaller company, I always tried to match the vendor size to our size.  Too large and we were less likely to command their attention.  Too small and there was a distinct possibility that when the chips were down, they would fail to meet commitments.  This mostly applied to custom goods and services.

Off the shelf items were usually purchased from a single supplier but could be purchased from any qualified vendor.  In the global company, this would not have any particular significance since the the annual purchases ran into the millions of $.  For the small company, we were so much smaller than the vendors we were using that our purchasing level was of little consequence.  The exception was when we were working with the traveling sales reps.  They were hungry enough that they appreciated the business that we passed their way.

From an accounting point of view, fewer would be better.  The bean counters at the global company used to tell us that it cost over $500 to qualify a new vendor and they strongly resisted doing so.  It usually took an approval from one or two levels above to use an unqualified vendor.  Hopefully, a smaller company doesn't have that kind of bureaucratic overhead but it still detracts from the paying work.


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## kd4gij (Oct 29, 2015)

Are you looking for suppliers? or Better tooling?


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## HarleyRiderNV (Oct 30, 2015)

kd4gij said:


> Are you looking for suppliers? or Better tooling?


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?


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## JimDawson (Oct 30, 2015)

HarleyRiderNV said:


> 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?



I suspect what you will find is that the ways will be fine as long as they are properly lubed, but the servo motors and drives will take the brunt of the load.  Have you noticed an increase of servo failures?


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## HarleyRiderNV (Oct 30, 2015)

No, we haven't noticed any servo failures, the machine definitely gets its fair share of lube to the ways. It's only 2 years old and it really doesn't run as much as others do (80 hours/week at most) so I don't see it being an issue, my boss does though and as it's machine I feel I definitely need to value his opinion but I also wanted to see others views in the business before I go back to him with anything.
It's not a production machine either so it's not like its running 100 of the same parts all day, we're more of a custom machine shop so our quantities are lower, say 5-10 a run.


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## JimDawson (Oct 30, 2015)

The boss's opinion will override reality every time.  I would go with what ever he wants.


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## RJSakowski (Oct 30, 2015)

JimDawson said:


> The boss's opinion will override reality every time.  I would go with what ever he wants.


Rule #2


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## HarleyRiderNV (Oct 30, 2015)

Fair enough


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## kd4gij (Oct 30, 2015)

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.


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## Charcole (Oct 31, 2015)

HarleyRiderNV said:


> 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.


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## astjp2 (Nov 1, 2015)

HarleyRiderNV said:


> 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....


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## derf (Nov 1, 2015)

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".


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## HarleyRiderNV (Nov 2, 2015)

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


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## joshua43214 (Nov 5, 2015)

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.


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