Higher Machine Utilization and Lower Operating Costs with Tool Automation

Summary

Through increasing machining complexity and product variants, cutting tool management has become one of the biggest time thieves on the shop floor. Efficient machine tending processes alone do not help if the cutting tools form a bottleneck for production. Cutting tool management increases the shop efficiency and production quality. Fastems LLC has been solving manufacturers’ cutting-tool-related productivity challenges since 1997 and is now presenting the big 'how' and 'why' of tool automation with practical examples.

In the presentation Fastems will showcase their approach on enabling cutting tools to be shared among multiple machines with examples:

• How to minimize redundancy and eliminate the need to dedicate tools for each machine?
• How to minimize operator interaction with tool changes, and enable more efficient labor usage while eliminating tool loading errors?
• How to reduce the sizes of machine tool magazines and generate savings on sister tools?

• Cutting tools forming a bottleneck: problems and challenges
• The best tool management practices
• How tool automation practically works
• The benefits of tool automation