Serious question about tool wear tracking methods

I keep seeing everyone on here swear by tracking tool life with spreadsheets and manual logs. Been doing that for about 18 months at my shop in Phoenix and I think it actually made things worse. The difference I saw was around month 6 - my insert life started dropping by about 12% because guys were forgetting to log changes or fudging the numbers. What really opened my eyes was watching a new kid just eyeball his tool changes based on sound and finish quality, and his scrap rate was half of mine. I think we got so caught up in data that we forgot the basics of paying attention to the machine. Has anyone else had their production go sideways after switching to a strict tracking system?

3 comments

3 Comments

evahenderson6d ago

The same thing happened to me at my last shop actually. Started tracking everything with spreadsheets and within a few months my tool life numbers went totally wacky. Turned out guys were logging changes at the end of their shift instead of when they actually swapped tools, so the data was useless. What worked for me was keeping color coded bins at each machine with fresh tools in one spot and used ones in another. The guy eyeballing his changes based on sound and finish like you mentioned was actually onto something dude. I went back to that method personally and paired it with a simple whiteboard by each machine so I could see trends without all the bullshit data entry. Sometimes less is more when it comes to tracking stuff, especially when your guys aren't into paperwork lol

hugos466d ago

Less is more" is what I keep telling myself about my garage organizing system but it just keeps getting worse somehow. @evahenderson you hit it with the whiteboards - my buddy at a shop in Tucson does that and swears his guys actually update them because its faster than their phones. That 12% drop you saw sounds brutal though, I'd probably just go back to listening to the machine too.

samk776d ago

Admit it, all that bottom-up feel-based "tracking" is just your excuse to avoid confronting how bad your guys really are at keeping tools straight.