Tool Management - Lighthouse MES Maintenance

Improve the management of tools with Lighthouse MES

Is the performance of high-value tools affecting your production and product quality?

Press tools, moulds, extrusion tools, fixtures, jigs are but a few examples where the tooling has a considerable effect on the process. Many tools produce more than 1 part at the same time e.g. multiple cavities, dies. Each of the cavities have their individual effect and must be managed accordingly.

What does the Tool Management module do?

Use the Tool Management software module of Lighthouse MES software to:

Build a tool asset library, with information about each tool, including each cavity
Track where and when tools are used
Support faster change-overs
Use the tool information to improve your production scheduling
Manage the state of tools, know when they are good to use

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What are the benefits of the Tool Management module?

Efficient tool tracking: track your tools, know where they are, where they have been used
Go paperless: if that is how you record the use of tools today
Faster change-overs: see when tool changes are coming up and mobilise accordingly
Visibility: everyone can see where the tools are and what state they are in
Reduce losses with multi-cavity tools: track the history of all cavities, when they have been opened and closed, make better decisions about when tools should be repaired rather than run with some cavities blocked
Improve quality: track measurements by tool and cavity, monitor degradation, make better decisions on when to maintain
Traceability: know what products were made with what tool and when

Features
Go Further

Create a tool library

Record information about each tool
Tools can be grouped into sets, where collections of tools are used together

Manage multi-cavity/die tools

Record information about each cavity/die where tools are multi-head e.g. injection moulding tools
Record when cavities are blocked and re-opened

Track tool usage and life

Track tools as they are used in processes – when they are loaded and unloaded
Know how many parts, cycles they have made to monitor tool life
Monitor the status of the tools - when they are unusable, when they need repair
Know where the tools are by tracking locations

Reporting

Insight into current level of tool inventory
Complete traceability history of each tool
Multi-cavity tool performance (cavities open/closed history)

The Tool Management module of Lighthouse MES is really powerful when used in conjunction with other modules and is rarely used stand-alone:

Scheduling – to plan the use of specific tools on production runs
Job Tracking – to know when and where tools were used or changed on each production run
Asset register – to capture more detail about the tool
Production Counting – to capture life-time cycle and part counts, if multi-cavity tools are used the cycle counts can be converted to piece counts
Quality – to record measurements against the tool and cavities and track performance
SPC Analysis Software – real-time SPC charts from all quality data to alert operatives if measured values break control limits or trend rules
Maintenance – to plan maintenance for your tools