A thick turret A (1/2-in.) station punch and guide assemblies and dies are organized in a drawer for easy visibility and access.
Punch tool organization is very important for any shop hoping to get the most out of their machine and tooling investments. Having your tools organized, sharp, and maintained leads to less downtime. If operators don’t have to look for tools and know they will be ready for use, productivity and profitability will inevitably be higher.
We suggest shops consider the following when aiming for efficiency and effectiveness in their punching operations.
First, it’s important to consider the type of tools you have. Are you a TRUMPF user? Are you using a thick turret? Do you have a variety of styles for several different machines? Do you have a lot of specials, and, if so, do you keep them assembled? This will help you consider how to organize your tooling.
The next consideration is how to store your tools. Typically for punch tooling it makes the most sense to store them in an enclosed cabinet to eliminate the risk of debris, dust, and dirt from the shop air collecting on them.
The case for using a rack or a shelf can be made in certain cases, however. For instance, if you have a large station die assembly that weighs 40 or 45 lbs., a rack makes sense. Anything that assists in the ergonomics of getting a job done right is important. In those situations, it’s important to take special care that you are cleaning and maintaining that assembly properly.
The location for your storage will really depend on how many machines the tooling will support. Having a centralized location with a tool crib operator who maintains it tends to make sense if you have more than five machines—that’s not a hard and fast rule, but if you have multiple machines and a quite a bit of tooling, centralizing that storage usually is the most efficient approach.
The benefit of such a setup is that the crib operator can focus on keeping the tools organized and sharp, setting up jobs on carts for the machine operators so that they can focus strictly on production.
Housing your tools right at a machine makes the most sense if you are not making a lot of tool changes and don’t often share tools between machines.
If you have two or three machines ganged together, it can be effective to have a centralized cabinet equidistant from the machines managed jointly by the operators.
In a shop with a large number of machines, a hybrid option sometimes is valuable. For instance, along with having a centralized crib with an attendant, each machine also could have cabinets for those high-run, always-in-the-machine tools, like your slitting tool—tools that are changed out only for sharpening and maintenance. Ultimately, you have to think what will be most efficient for your shop.
Wilson Tool’s iSeries tooling is designed with a data matrix code to work seamlessly with the AITS tool management system. This helps keep track of inventory, lets you know where your tools are, and tells you how much the tool has been ground down because it also can be tied to your automated grinder.
Once you’ve determined your tool inventory and your storage method, it’s key to come up with a system for organizing your tools. A cabinet loses its value if it remains a disorganized mess.
Make sure you have everything labeled, stating what type of tool it is and what station it is. It’s important that everything is easily identifiable.
Choosing how everything is going to be organized is, of course, very particular to each shop. I’ve seen situations where a drawer was all eight-station tooling, with one row being round tools, another squares, and in a third, rectangles. Other shops might organize a drawer by the gauges it will be punching.
Each tool slot still needs to be individually labeled. It’s important not only that a tool is easy to find, but also that it’s easy to put it back where it belongs. Often that last step is where organization plans fall apart.
Some shops will colour code their tools, giving t with the same die clearance all the same colour, for instance. It doesn’t work for every shop, but for many it does make certain tools easily identifiable in their cabinets.
Other shops will add to this a way of marking which machine a tool is currently being used in. For instance, a shop with three machines might colour code them red, green, and blue. If a tool is being used in the red machine, a red marker is placed where the tool is housed to note this.
In some cases, tool identification is becoming high tech. For instance, it’s possible to purchase tools laser etched with a QR code. Using a machine that read these codes, you can scan it and enter it into your database, stating the tool’s size and shape. That isn’t as easily identifiable when you are just looking at the tool, but when you think of Industry 4.0 and the digital transformations many shops are undergoing, this really is the way of the future because it keeps track of inventory, lets you know where your tools are, and tells you how much the tool has been ground down because it also can be tied to your automated grinder.
We recommend creating shadow boards for hand tools so your operators aren’t constantly looking around for those types of tools either. We use these in our shop, and it has led to an increase in efficiency, with less time spent searching for that spanner wrench you need to get a tool ready.
Once organized, use those storage locations on your setup sheets so that there is consistency throughout the shop. The operator knows where the tools are based on how easy it is to ID them at the cabinet, but they also know by looking at their setup sheet—this is the cabinet, and this is the drawer where I should expect to find this tool.
It’s important to schedule jobs with the tooling already in the machine in mind to minimize changeouts. If a machine typically runs a particular material gauge, you will have slitting tools and squares that are used on almost every job. If you can minimize the changeouts to a few specials, it’s often possible to run multiple jobs for similar material gauge without changes.
Thick turret tooling is organized on a cart and ready to be loaded into the turret. For shops with five or more punch machines, it can be cost effective to have tooling stored in a central location and managed by a crib operator. Having one person prepare tooling and carts can save time and improve efficiencies on the machines.
It can seem counterintuitive, but the more often you grind your tools, the longer they last. Ideally you want to remove no more than a couple of thousandths every time you sharpen them.
The most efficient option is to have an automated grinder right next to the machine that you can leave to do its job, or if you have a crib, locate it there for the operator to use.
Tool crib operators tend to sharpen specials themselves because they are experts in maintaining those tools. For shops without a tool crib operator, we recommend sending those tools to your supplier to ensure that the cutting surface is not only sharpened properly, but that material is removed correctly from the ejector or die base to maintain the relation among the various pieces of the tool. Many of these suggestions may sound like common sense, but if they are not systematized it is easy to see tools and processes go astray. Following them, however, will increase productivity and reduce wasted time.
Susan Erler is product manager, Punching/My Account, at Wilson Tool Intl., 12912 Farnham Ave. N., White Bear Lake, Minn. 55110, 651-286-6154, susan.erler@wilsontool.com, www.wilsontool.com.
A shadow board is a simple solution to keep workspaces organized.
Product Manager, Punching/My Account
See More by Susan Erler
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