What's everyone using for tooling management (as in inventory, usage, etc.)?

[medaq]

On 12/14/2021 at 1:47 PM, Bob W. said:

Yes, it is very simple and very inexpensive.  We were early adopters so Western gave us the cabinet which they still own.  We bought the second cabinet and pay a $100/ month fee which is refunded if we order more then $1k in tools per month.  We order something like $20k in tools per month so it ends up being free.  I'm not sure the exact terms at this point because it runs entirely in the background which is how it should be.  At the end of the day it is a huge win/ win because the cabinet orders the tools which saves the sales people a ton of time.  Makes them much more productive as well.

We also jumped on to this system when it came out. We saw a drastic decrease in purchasing tools when the cabinet went live. No tools were misplaced, we knew where everything was. Since then, we have added 2 more to our shop for a total of 3. I now keep everything in them, tool holders, pull studs, collets, er, sk, mega, drills, endmills, taps, thread lock, carvesmart softjaws, citizen collets, and so on. Recently pushed our coolant and oils into the system for the ease of ordering. I have 2 more cabinets on order to add to a station, 1 station can control more than one cabinet. The system pays for its self in keeping over ordering down, and now with collets added. Speed of setups and not searching for stuff.

[Aaron Eberhard]

6 hours ago, motor-vater said:

Not a good idea to ease into a tool crib management system, We tried it and failed miserably, to many people walking in and out grabbing tools, taking spares, over riding the system and what we ended up with was a tool bill that was double our usual monthly!
 

Yeah, I was planning on bringing in the tool management with an iron fist

It's the ERP thing I'm having trouble getting buy-in from the current owner on and I'm trying to ease him into.   I think it's finally getting through to him, maybe?   This is the test run to see if I want to buy in on this shop, so we'll see....

Quote

Integration into Mastercam? Come on Man, you are one of us now, you should know better.... LOL

I know, but I was trying to have SOME level of naive optimism!   Seriously, there is one company that seems to be doing it right, it's headed up by the Mastercam Switzerland reseller called "MDM" that has excellent job/file/tool/etc control: https://www.mdmtooling.com/en/home/

 

 

As it is, I have feelers out to both Western/FTS and Matrix.

 

Thanks again to everyone, this has been an excellent discussion!

[gcode]

12 minutes ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

Seriously, there is one company that seems to be doing it right, it's headed up by the Mastercam Switzerland reseller called "MDM" that has excellent job/file/tool/etc control: https://www.mdmtooling.com/en/home/

my experience with European tool data management systems is that the prices are breathtaking

I'd be interested in looking at MDM Tooling if it is affordable

[Orvie]

CoroPlus Tool Supply

[Bob W.]

On 12/21/2021 at 12:39 PM, Aaron Eberhard said:

It's the ERP thing I'm having trouble getting buy-in from the current owner on and I'm trying to ease him into.   I think it's finally getting through to him, maybe?   This is the test run to see if I want to buy in on this shop, so we'll see....

How big is the shop?  If the shop is 3-4 employees ERP would be a tough sell because it requires a significant amount of time and resources to implement and run.  At 3-4 employees the cost is lost productivity would outweigh the benefit from ERP.  If the shop is 10+ employees and there is a management structure starting to form ERP becomes a valuable tool the the benefits outweigh the cost.  We didn't have ERP until this year and we use Microsoft's Business Central which is bad@ss.  It is a LOT of work to set up but it is extremely configurable and powerful.  MUCH better than E2 or Jobboss, etc...  Prior to this year we used Quickbooks for accounting and that was enough.

As for managing the tool crib and other shop related stuff.  We have detailed SOPs (standard operating procedures) and employees are expected to follow them.  If they don't follow them they get fired pretty quickly, end of story.  We have ZERO patience for guys on their own program.  If they don't like how things are we discuss how to make them better but they are always expected to follow the processes in place.  We are an aerospace shop and we run a really tight ship and all process violations are documented and resolved.  Three strikes and off to become another shops problem.  The result of this was quick turnover initially but we now have a very stable group of employees that operate at another level.  I wouldn't trade one guy (or gal) in my shop right now for anyone.

[huskermcdoogle]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:39 PM, Aaron Eberhard said:

As it is, I have feelers out to both Western/FTS and Matrix.

Don't rule out a Kennametal Tool Boss.  So long as there is growth opportunity, they are free to the end user.  Sometimes, vendors will put them in for free and insulate the bogey on growth from the end customer.

[Aaron Eberhard]

18 hours ago, Bob W. said:

How big is the shop?  If the shop is 3-4 employees ERP would be a tough sell because it requires a significant amount of time and resources to implement and run.  At 3-4 employees the cost is lost productivity would outweigh the benefit from ERP.  If the shop is 10+ employees and there is a management structure starting to form ERP becomes a valuable tool the the benefits outweigh the cost.  We didn't have ERP until this year and we use Microsoft's Business Central which is bad@ss.  It is a LOT of work to set up but it is extremely configurable and powerful.  MUCH better than E2 or Jobboss, etc...  Prior to this year we used Quickbooks for accounting and that was enough. 

The shop is 7 people and yeah, full blow ERP is overkill for where it is today, but wasn't for where we agreed it could be in a year.  The problem was that when I started, it was all "managed" by an excel sheet that wasn't in any sort of priority, it was arranged alphabetically by customer.  All of the priorities were in the owners' head for each job's due date. When I asked everyone what the worst part of working there was, they all told me it was that there was no way for them to know ahead of time what was coming, every day they'd be told to stop what they're doing and work on something different.

That's why I went with what I call "ERP-Lite," which was a Trello board with different categories for the different departments. I made a separate ticket each part that came in, enforced that every job coming through the doors had a real due date (as well as a note if we could slip if it if the customer wasn't in a rush), then made sure that each one went into a "check material" group to ensure we had it.  From there, it moved into either Order Material, Milling, Turning, Metalizing/Welding, Outside Processes (hardening, etc.), Waiting For All Items (for a multi-part order), Ready for Ship/Pickup.  

Once I got all the info into it, it only took about 20 or 30 minutes a day to keep up on, and all of the guys in the shop really appreciated how easy it was for them to log hours (each ticket had a checklist of procedures such as Milling, Turning, Programming, etc. that they could write how many hours it took them to do it), see priorities, etc.

It WAS working fairly well for the shop, so I was starting to try to get control of the tool usage & management (hence this thread).

Quote

As for managing the tool crib and other shop related stuff.  We have detailed SOPs (standard operating procedures) and employees are expected to follow them.  If they don't follow them they get fired pretty quickly, end of story.  We have ZERO patience for guys on their own program.  If they don't like how things are we discuss how to make them better but they are always expected to follow the processes in place.  We are an aerospace shop and we run a really tight ship and all process violations are documented and resolved.  Three strikes and off to become another shops problem.  The result of this was quick turnover initially but we now have a very stable group of employees that operate at another level.  I wouldn't trade one guy (or gal) in my shop right now for anyone.

This is EXACTLY what I was trying to get to! 

[Aaron Eberhard]

And with that, though, my experiment exploded, so it's the end of this chapter.

The owner has been resistant to a lot of the changes I was making; well, to put it a different way, he was fully in favor of them as long as they didn't apply to him As long as he could still randomly rearrange things, bring work in without telling anyone (and forget about it until after the due date) then freak out and need everything dropped, he was fine with trying to optimize the shop.

It also turns out he really had no intention of bringing in modern equipment, but that "it sounded good when we talked about it (before I was hired)." 

It turns out that spending time making sure we knew what each part needed (stock/processes/etc) so it could be in trello and we could have visibility of it were a "waste of time" and that I shouldn't have been "playing on the computer, I should have been making parts." 

The real root of the problem is that he "hasn't had time" to talk through how we should be doing any of this and I should "just provide solutions," which of course I couldn't implement without working with him.

I was also accused of grossly under-estimating job times, but it turns out that he wasn't reading my quote sheets correctly or listening to what I told him.  I think he was substituting whatever he wanted it to be?   He wouldn't spend 5 minutes to go over something like that with me, though.  He completely disregarded my "programming time" estimates because "that's not machine time" (these are for some complex gas-turbine parts...), and got annoyed that I wouldn't order tooling for the jobs before I programmed them (since I didn't know what tools I was going to need of course).  I was not consulted in any discussions of what the end price would be, and a few times he ordered stock he though it should be instead of what I specced, which of course caused some drama.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certain that I'm not blameless in this falling apart, but I still haven't figured out exactly how I was supposed to fix all this dysfunction without any support especially if he couldn't make time to discuss things;  All of the promises of working together to solve problems were really just that, promises.  I believe the term my Texas friends use is "all hat, no cattle."  

 

Ah well, I learned a lot (although not directly from him), and I hope he can find what he's looking for, someone to panic and flap about more.  

I believe, after the holiday, it'll be time to talk to a commercial real estate realtor...

[crazy^millman]

1 hour ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

And with that, though, my experiment exploded, so it's the end of this chapter.

The owner has been resistant to a lot of the changes I was making; well, to put it a different way, he was fully in favor of them as long as they didn't apply to him As long as he could still randomly rearrange things, bring work in without telling anyone (and forget about it until after the due date) then freak out and need everything dropped, he was fine with trying to optimize the shop.

It also turns out he really had no intention of bringing in modern equipment, but that "it sounded good when we talked about it (before I was hired)." 

It turns out that spending time making sure we knew what each part needed (stock/processes/etc) so it could be in trello and we could have visibility of it were a "waste of time" and that I shouldn't have been "playing on the computer, I should have been making parts." 

The real root of the problem is that he "hasn't had time" to talk through how we should be doing any of this and I should "just provide solutions," which of course I couldn't implement without working with him.

I was also accused of grossly under-estimating job times, but it turns out that he wasn't reading my quote sheets correctly or listening to what I told him.  I think he was substituting whatever he wanted it to be?   He wouldn't spend 5 minutes to go over something like that with me, though.  He completely disregarded my "programming time" estimates because "that's not machine time" (these are for some complex gas-turbine parts...), and got annoyed that I wouldn't order tooling for the jobs before I programmed them (since I didn't know what tools I was going to need of course).  I was not consulted in any discussions of what the end price would be, and a few times he ordered stock he though it should be instead of what I specced, which of course caused some drama.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certain that I'm not blameless in this falling apart, but I still haven't figured out exactly how I was supposed to fix all this dysfunction without any support especially if he couldn't make time to discuss things;  All of the promises of working together to solve problems were really just that, promises.  I believe the term my Texas friends use is "all hat, no cattle."  

 

Ah well, I learned a lot (although not directly from him), and I hope he can find what he's looking for, someone to panic and flap about more.  

I believe, after the holiday, it'll be time to talk to a commercial real estate realtor...

One thing I have learned in a situation like what you just went through is get it all in writing. Talk is cheap and when people are forced by a legal document to live up to what they agreed to trust me things change or they pay up. These are the terms of our relationship and agreement. If either party doesn't live up to their part of the agreement here are the penalties for such.

Really sorry it went down like this, but a partnership is just that and if someone is too arrogant and prideful to work with someone of your talents then their loss.

[Bob W.]

Sounds like that shop is trapped in no man's land.  He has enough employees that he can sort of manage things but he has no extra capacity to develop new systems or implement new processes because 100% of his time is dedicated to just running the shop as-is.  The new processes and systems are EXACTLY what the shop needs to move to the next level.  The only way to do this is to effectively delegate and to do that there needs to be a very competent person that can take on high level projects and move them forward.  That costs $$$...  It is a very tricky trap to navigate through because financially it can be a step back and that is hard to swallow for an owner, they need to have a clear long term vision and a clear understanding of the short term challenges to get over the hump.  I can totally relate to this because we went through it in 2018-2019.  I never worked so hard and it was extremely frustrating and expensive to establish management and a solid business structure.  The benefit is that now my work load is 30-40 hours a week, the shop is more profitable than ever, and I get to have a life and take vacations.

To accomplish this I hired a good friend from college, made their pay commission based and provided incentives for them to earn equity in the shop if certain milestones were reached, which they were.  It was a pretty unconventional approach but it did work.  This agreement was reached in 2017 and we started to see light at the end of the tunnel in 2020.

I should also add that we had a legal contract/ agreement from day 1.

[So not a Guru]

1 hour ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

so it's the end of this chapter

I'm a firm believer in the adage "When one door closes, another door opens". I hope your next chapter is exponentially more successful.

[JParis]

1 hour ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

And with that, though, my experiment exploded, so it's the end of this chapter.

The owner has been resistant to a lot of the changes I was making; well, to put it a different way, he was fully in favor of them as long as they didn't apply to him As long as he could still randomly rearrange things, bring work in without telling anyone (and forget about it until after the due date) then freak out and need everything dropped, he was fine with trying to optimize the shop.

It also turns out he really had no intention of bringing in modern equipment, but that "it sounded good when we talked about it (before I was hired)." 

It turns out that spending time making sure we knew what each part needed (stock/processes/etc) so it could be in trello and we could have visibility of it were a "waste of time" and that I shouldn't have been "playing on the computer, I should have been making parts." 

The real root of the problem is that he "hasn't had time" to talk through how we should be doing any of this and I should "just provide solutions," which of course I couldn't implement without working with him.

I was also accused of grossly under-estimating job times, but it turns out that he wasn't reading my quote sheets correctly or listening to what I told him.  I think he was substituting whatever he wanted it to be?   He wouldn't spend 5 minutes to go over something like that with me, though.  He completely disregarded my "programming time" estimates because "that's not machine time" (these are for some complex gas-turbine parts...), and got annoyed that I wouldn't order tooling for the jobs before I programmed them (since I didn't know what tools I was going to need of course).  I was not consulted in any discussions of what the end price would be, and a few times he ordered stock he though it should be instead of what I specced, which of course caused some drama.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certain that I'm not blameless in this falling apart, but I still haven't figured out exactly how I was supposed to fix all this dysfunction without any support especially if he couldn't make time to discuss things;  All of the promises of working together to solve problems were really just that, promises.  I believe the term my Texas friends use is "all hat, no cattle."  

 

Ah well, I learned a lot (although not directly from him), and I hope he can find what he's looking for, someone to panic and flap about more.  

I believe, after the holiday, it'll be time to talk to a commercial real estate realtor...

Well Aaron, good luck in your next turn.

Suffice to say I have "been there, done that"...the getting it all in writing is well and good but when an owner has no intention of holding up his end of the bargain, well, it never ends well and that paper and $3 will get you a cup of coffee..

It almost sounds to me like he really didn't want an investor, what he wanted was another employee and used that smokescreen to try to get one...

You certainly know your skillset....a little rooting around and in this climate, I am sure you'll find something that fits your professional needs much, much better...

Good Luck!!!

[Colin Gilchrist]

3 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

And with that, though, my experiment exploded, so it's the end of this chapter.

The owner has been resistant to a lot of the changes I was making; well, to put it a different way, he was fully in favor of them as long as they didn't apply to him As long as he could still randomly rearrange things, bring work in without telling anyone (and forget about it until after the due date) then freak out and need everything dropped, he was fine with trying to optimize the shop.

It also turns out he really had no intention of bringing in modern equipment, but that "it sounded good when we talked about it (before I was hired)." 

It turns out that spending time making sure we knew what each part needed (stock/processes/etc) so it could be in trello and we could have visibility of it were a "waste of time" and that I shouldn't have been "playing on the computer, I should have been making parts." 

The real root of the problem is that he "hasn't had time" to talk through how we should be doing any of this and I should "just provide solutions," which of course I couldn't implement without working with him.

I was also accused of grossly under-estimating job times, but it turns out that he wasn't reading my quote sheets correctly or listening to what I told him.  I think he was substituting whatever he wanted it to be?   He wouldn't spend 5 minutes to go over something like that with me, though.  He completely disregarded my "programming time" estimates because "that's not machine time" (these are for some complex gas-turbine parts...), and got annoyed that I wouldn't order tooling for the jobs before I programmed them (since I didn't know what tools I was going to need of course).  I was not consulted in any discussions of what the end price would be, and a few times he ordered stock he though it should be instead of what I specced, which of course caused some drama.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certain that I'm not blameless in this falling apart, but I still haven't figured out exactly how I was supposed to fix all this dysfunction without any support especially if he couldn't make time to discuss things;  All of the promises of working together to solve problems were really just that, promises.  I believe the term my Texas friends use is "all hat, no cattle."  

 

Ah well, I learned a lot (although not directly from him), and I hope he can find what he's looking for, someone to panic and flap about more.  

I believe, after the holiday, it'll be time to talk to a commercial real estate realtor...

At the end of the day Aaron, you're still a really smart guy, and have the drive, youth, and experience to outclass this bozo at every turn. There are slimy guys in many corners of the manufacturing industry, and it can be hard to sort truth from fiction sometimes. If you're going into business for yourself, you'll never work harder in your life, but the harder you grind at first, the better your long term outlook will be.

What kind of work do you want to go after? Basic Job Shop? Aerospace? Military? Biotech? Composites? Optics? Wood? All-of-thee-above?

What kind of tolerances do you want to work in? This will drive the kind of equipment you need to purchase during the startup phase, and as things grow.

Have you started writing a formal business plan, or is this still "all in your head"?  I know it can be shocking to have a business relationship and employment situation suddenly implode.

I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee, or lunch, and chat your ear off for a bit. I just bought a house in East Hartford, CT, so we're practically neighbors again. (Although not nearly as close as last time.)  At least my new place has a level lot, and a sweet garage. (It's nothing special though and I'm still jealous of your lift!)

And if you don't already have a copy, I've got a book you need to borrow and read...

[bd41612]

2 hours ago, JParis said:

Well Aaron, good luck in your next turn.

Suffice to say I have "been there, done that"...the getting it all in writing is well and good but when an owner has no intention of holding up his end of the bargain, well, it never ends well and that paper and $3 will get you a cup of coffee..

It almost sounds to me like he really didn't want an investor, what he wanted was another employee and used that smokescreen to try to get one...

You certainly know your skillset....a little rooting around and in this climate, I am sure you'll find something that fits your professional needs much, much better...

Good Luck!!!

I know a couple guys who got roped into situations like this.  It seems like they want good people cheap.  So they say things like "I can't afford to pay you much right now, but with yours knowledge and skills, I would like to make you part owner of the company as we grow".  I've never seen it happen, everyone quit after the realization that it was an empty promise, and the realization that they just been had.

[Aaron Eberhard]

Thanks for all of the well wishes, check-ins, anecdotes, I love reading them   I'm doing well and I'm not concerned.  Obviously disappointed with the way it played out but I knew it was a high risk gamble when I rolled the dice.  Luckily, I planned on this being a possible outcome.

And yes, if you couldn't tell from my writing, I figured it wasn't going to work out probably about a month in, and if things didn't get better after the new year I was planning on pulling the plug anyway. He beat me to the punch and at a horrible time of year, but c'est la vie.

4 hours ago, crazy^millman said:

One thing I have learned in a situation like what you just went through is get it all in writing. Talk is cheap and when people are forced by a legal document to live up to what they agreed to trust me things change or they pay up. These are the terms of our relationship and agreement. If either party doesn't live up to their part of the agreement here are the penalties for such.

Really sorry it went down like this, but a partnership is just that and if someone is too arrogant and prideful to work with someone of your talents then their loss.

 

4 hours ago, JParis said:

Well Aaron, good luck in your next turn.

Suffice to say I have "been there, done that"...the getting it all in writing is well and good but when an owner has no intention of holding up his end of the bargain, well, it never ends well and that paper and $3 will get you a cup of coffee.. 

It almost sounds to me like he really didn't want an investor, what he wanted was another employee and used that smokescreen to try to get one...

You certainly know your skillset....a little rooting around and in this climate, I am sure you'll find something that fits your professional needs much, much better...

Good Luck!!!

I figured I'd have good company here with my story Although I'm a generally optimistic person, I was realistic enough to not want to hitch this horse to my wagon permanently without a test drive, so for the first year (by mutual agreement) I was just an employee.  I could quit or get fired at any time with no contractual or legal ramifications. 

I'm trying to keep positive, even with regards to my time there, as I agree with Bob that he just kind of panicked when the reality of what we agreed to before I got hired started to hit, and he couldn't think big picture/long term enough to realize that there would be rewards.  I think you nailed it exactly, JP, he was looking for an employee that would be just like him, but I don't want to live in a reactive panic-y world.   You're talking to the guy who literally has "Don't Panic" on his race helmet

4 hours ago, So not a Guru said:

I'm a firm believer in the adage "When one door closes, another door opens". I hope your next chapter is exponentially more successful.

Thank you, sir!

1 hour ago, bd41612 said:

I know a couple guys who got roped into situations like this.  It seems like they want good people cheap.  So they say things like "I can't afford to pay you much right now, but with yours knowledge and skills, I would like to make you part owner of the company as we grow".  I've never seen it happen, everyone quit after the realization that it was an empty promise, and the realization that they just been had.

Yeah, I actually had this one in the employment contract that I'd get the opportunity to buy in as part investor after a year, and he was willing to pay a decent salary, but I think that he didn't realize the enormity of changes he needed to his company to really turn it around and actually expand like he talked about doing.

[Aaron Eberhard]

1 hour ago, Colin Gilchrist said:

At the end of the day Aaron, you're still a really smart guy, and have the drive, youth, and experience to outclass this bozo at every turn. There are slimy guys in many corners of the manufacturing industry, and it can be hard to sort truth from fiction sometimes. If you're going into business for yourself, you'll never work harder in your life, but the harder you grind at first, the better your long term outlook will be. 

What kind of work do you want to go after? Basic Job Shop? Aerospace? Military? Biotech? Composites? Optics? Wood? All-of-thee-above?

What kind of tolerances do you want to work in? This will drive the kind of equipment you need to purchase during the startup phase, and as things grow.

Have you started writing a formal business plan, or is this still "all in your head"?  I know it can be shocking to have a business relationship and employment situation suddenly implode.

I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee, or lunch, and chat your ear off for a bit. I just bought a house in East Hartford, CT, so we're practically neighbors again. (Although not nearly as close as last time.)  At least my new place has a level lot, and a sweet garage. (It's nothing special though and I'm still jealous of your lift!)

And if you don't already have a copy, I've got a book you need to borrow and read... 

I didn't realize you were back in town!  Well, CT is small enough to basically be a town.  I'd love to get together.  Send me a message and let's figure out a time.  I'm free for a few days!    It's nice that you were able to finally get a good lot and a nice garage, that makes life soo much better.   Look into getting a Ranger QuickJack.  If I didn't already have the two-post in my garage, it's probably the way I would have gone.  It makes 99% of what normal people do in the garage super quick, even faster than a regular lift for less than half the price.

I was hoping to go aerospace & prototype, composites are fine, but wood makes me sneeze!  I don't think it would be wise to invest the kind of scratch to get sub .0002" reliably, especially since so much of that is environmental I don't have the scratch to buy a shop to make it perfect right out of the gate, and most of what I've worked on there is +-.002" overall or so, so nothing crazy tight by modern standards.   Once I got enough float to play in that game, I imagine that military would be mighty profitable in this area for the next decade, if I could get in good with Electric Boat!  I know too many companies that got destroyed waiting on their payments, though, so that's a game to be played when I'm more experienced.

I don't have the business plan sorted out yet, as I was hoping to shortcut the "grind for 90 hours a week for a decade" phase of the operation by helping a shop that's already put in the time jump to the next level, and basically going with a plan like Bob described. 

-----------------------

And finally, thanks again everyone:)  I'm using this a nice holiday break to reflect on how I want to proceed.  It will likely start with some consulting in the short term while I get reoriented.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

[Zoffen]

One thing to not overlook in the beginning is the quality aspect of things. Sure you can do the work and make the parts to spec but how do you prove to your customer that you are committed to quality. You can make super expensive parts on a really cheap machine....just be sure you can check them properly.

 

I took this to heart with my own shop this year and bought a 2017 Wenzel Cmm with a Revo 2 5 axis scanning head on it. WAY WAY WAY overkill for my shop and current work but in a few weeks I quickly came to realize that if a CMM has to touch a part, It costs 2x to 10000x as much just because you have to CMM it. Pretty much the same parts, same types of tolerances, same machining, same everything, just that the CMM "Blesses" it and now its worth its weight in gold.

Not only will you be able to make higher value parts, but with a CMM and the proper use of it, everything is on easy mode. When you can analyze your parts with that level of detail you can quickly and easily overcome mistakes and shortcomings of your lower end machines you start out with. Once you can CMM a part, comping it into spec becomes childs play.

Additionally, It speaks volumes about the shop and philosophy if your highest end machine is associated with quality. No one will give a second look to my 2014 VF-4SS but they will be very interested in my Wenzel CMM with 5 axis scanning.....

 

 

 

[Guest]

21 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

The shop is 7 people and yeah, full blow ERP is overkill for where it is today, but wasn't for where we agreed it could be in a year.  The problem was that when I started, it was all "managed" by an excel sheet that wasn't in any sort of priority, it was arranged alphabetically by customer.  All of the priorities were in the owners' head for each job's due date. When I asked everyone what the worst part of working there was, they all told me it was that there was no way for them to know ahead of time what was coming, every day they'd be told to stop what they're doing and work on something different.

That's why I went with what I call "ERP-Lite," which was a Trello board with different categories for the different departments. I made a separate ticket each part that came in, enforced that every job coming through the doors had a real due date (as well as a note if we could slip if it if the customer wasn't in a rush), then made sure that each one went into a "check material" group to ensure we had it.  From there, it moved into either Order Material, Milling, Turning, Metalizing/Welding, Outside Processes (hardening, etc.), Waiting For All Items (for a multi-part order), Ready for Ship/Pickup.  

Having a work order system is great, with boxes that are stamped, excel is great and all, but those schedules need to be on the wall so nobody "forgets to check"

 

I think you will do better if you open a small shop with a 3 axis router you would make a killing with your connections, it's easy to scale up from there..

That stuff is easy to automate as well, so you can keep low programming costs..

 

I knew you were fency about the new place, but I'm surprised you didn't make it work, sorry it didn't work out..

 

[Colin Gilchrist]

14 minutes ago, byte said:

Having a work order system is great, with boxes that are stamped, excel is great and all, but those schedules need to be on the wall so nobody "forgets to check"

 

I think you will do better if you open a small shop with a 3 axis router you would make a killing with your connections, it's easy to scale up from there..

That stuff is easy to automate as well, so you can keep low programming costs..

 

I knew you were fency about the new place, but I'm surprised you didn't make it work, sorry it didn't work out..

 

To me it sounds like he dodged a bullet. Better to rip the bandaid off and be done, than hang around in a company where you are lied to. 

[Newbeeee™]

Dang - sorry the d!ck peed on your fireworks Aaron   In the UK we say he's all mouth and no trousers!

As Colin said, yes you dodged a bullet. You cannot teach pork - leopards won't change spots etc - the fact that he used the phrase "playing on the computer" in reality tells you all you need to know about him.

Onwards and upwards!

 

 

[Newbeeee™]

16 hours ago, Zoffen said:

Additionally, It speaks volumes about the shop and philosophy if your highest end machine is associated with quality. No one will give a second look to my 2014 VF-4SS but they will be very interested in my Wenzel CMM with 5 axis scanning.....

 

THIS is a big thing. As soon as I could afford one, (2 years in) I bought one with CAD inspect - direct to model. Customers loved it for the prototypes because they could cut their own lead time by not having to supply full prints. It gives a HUGE tick where customer QA audits are concerned.

[Aaron Eberhard]

Absolutely, I'm a big believer in CMM/Inspection routines.  I also like on machine probing and automation for things like wear comp to hit bearing bores or whatever.  That was another point of contention is that I wanted to plot a course to get to ISO cert (as I knew we had customers that would want it) and get a hold of at least a Faro/Romer arm setup (maybe Master3dGage w/ Verisurf?) as it was something we discussed before I signed up, but again, shot down .

[Newbeeee™]

2 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

Absolutely, I'm a big believer in CMM/Inspection routines.  I also like on machine probing and automation for things like wear comp to hit bearing bores or whatever.  That was another point of contention is that I wanted to plot a course to get to ISO cert (as I knew we had customers that would want it) and get a hold of at least a Faro/Romer arm setup (maybe Master3dGage w/ Verisurf?) as it was something we discussed before I signed up, but again, shot down .

ISO is not that big of a deal. I got it at my place when there was just the 2 of us. It was a mandate for the Aerospace work and just before I sold up, my Customers were talking AS9100 would be needed in the near future. I was pretty much there - just needed to implement full stock control detailing EXACTLY how many inches of what material and wire inserts and PEMs etc were in the stores.

Ref you saying about work prioritisation.....I ran my place off a big whiteboard and spread sheet which wifey would print out in due date order and update on the white board. It never allowed for start dates because the spread sheet had no times/process - that was down to manual intervention to group jobs for cells and prioritise because plate/paint/assy obviously wasn't allowed for on the printouts etc. But a Sunday morning and that prioritised everything for the coming week....

I sold my place to a group and integrated it into one of their local shops - they dropped my old spreadsheet because they had a mrp although no one knew how to run it. Last I heard (I stopped contracting 6 months ago but had proj managed the amalgamation) was they still didn't have work to lists on the shop floor and had the exact same situation as you were saying - stop that job, set this up NOW etc etc  (gold mine ran like a coal mine)....

 

[Bob W.]

I would take a good machine over a CMM 100% of the time.  From my experience CMMs don't produce revenue, they open doors to aerospace work and for that they are a necessity.  As a new shop you would need revenue above all else.  Doing aerospace work on a 3-axis VMC would not be fun at all and it would be hard to turn a profit with a shop with ANY employees.  Due to the documentation and quality requirements of aerospace work the shop would need to be VERY efficient in other areas to make up for this overhead.  My shop has one person on quality full time and three full time people in inspection so in a shop with 11 employees those are the resources going to these areas.  This pretty much means multi-axis machining of tight tolerance parts because that is where the $$$ are.  If we had only low end VMCs we wouldn't be able to stay in business with aerospace.  You could only really do it as a one man operation but this is just my opinion and I could be wrong.  Rather than invest a nickle in a CMM, spend the $$$ on a nice 5-axis machine that will be the cornerstone of your shop.  Use the revenue that produces to build out from there.  My $.02.

Employee wages are a lot more than a machine payment so you would want to put the pieces in place that will not only make the machine payment but also produces the revenue to support employees.  Years ago one of my employees demanded a raise to $34/hr (20 year old kid with 3 years experience) and I was a little offended but I did give him a clear path to get there over the course of six months.  That included taking courses in GD&T and learning to run and program the CMM, mostly on his own time but 100% on our dime.  He wasn't willing to do those things and a few weeks later we parted ways and he did ultimately get a job at a shop running VMCs and he started at $25/hr.  He has been there a few years and I'd guess he is probably now making $26/hr.  That shop isn't running equipment or processes capable of generating the revenue to pay its employees well...  The efficiency and throughput of the shop is where your pay comes from, not the boss.  Something to think about when job hopping.

 

[notamachinist]

We are a job shop with 9 machinists and a total staff of 22, 30 Swiss Automatics (Citizen & Maier), 1 Brother Speedio 700X1 Mill and a handful of manual machines.  I am our Tool Crib Manager, a position that was new to our company a year ago.  In the past, tools were loosely organized in divided Lista cabinet drawers.  These tools could have been excess tools from a completed job or tooling that was used on a daily basis.  All tooling was “on the shop floor” and accessible to everyone.  

We have a vendor provided CTMS/Matrix vending system provided by one of our vendors that was installed a few years ago.  I am very happy with it and it works extremely well for tooling, particularly on long run jobs.  We have only scratched the surface on its capabilities.  It is very feature rich.  One feature I really like is the ability to set up Customers, Part Numbers and Machines as Cost Centers.  This also aides me in the creation of Tooling Lists for jobs.  This is also something I created as part of this position.  It was was pretty easy to set up and is very easy to maintain, essentially just activating/deactivating Customers and Part Numbers as jobs are started/completed.  It provides tool costs for quoting and job costing with no extra effort.  When a machinist checks out/issues items, they select the Customer and Part Number and Machine #, the light on the appropriate drawer lights and the latch on the bin associated with that tool is released.  That transaction is also assigned to a Cost Center.  It is a little effort on the machinists part, but they do not complain, and they are able to choose from a drop down list, which should continue to be pretty short, because it is just active Customers and Part Numbers. 

Our Matrix was recently upgraded to V6.5 and I am experimenting with with a sub feature of  Cost Centers referred to as Item Limitation or Adding Items to Cost Centers.  It allows me to list the tools related to a particular Customer and Part Number, so only the tools used on that job are available to the machinist for check out/issue.  This should essentially eliminate wrong tooling being checked out for a job.  I am only planning on implementing this feature for long run jobs or repeat jobs.  It it pretty quick to set up, but I don’t see much point in setting it up for jobs that only run a few days.     

We use a massive white board that has a room for all of our machines and job prints, so you can quickly see staged jobs on hold jobs, jobs that need programming, setup, tear down and those that are running.  We have daily meetings with QC/Shipping and Processing at the white board to review jobs and we have a separate meeting with the machinists to again review jobs.  Similar meetings but different topics.  These have proved to be very helpful and everyone is on the same page!  They are usually only 10 minutes each and at the most 15 minutes.

I implemented Purchase Requisitions so I know who and how to notify machinists when tools come in that they have requested.  Most of the time, they get hung on the machine running the job.  Previously, everything was ordered off of a scrap piece of paper at best.  

We have also implemented Tooling Lists for our jobs.  We had very rudimentary Tear Down sheet that didn’t list Mfr or P/Ns for tooling nor did it even list Customer Part Numbers and almost never did it list Revision Levels.  

I created spreadsheet templates in Apple Mac Numbers for all of our Swiss machines which have some basic information about each machine

• Machine #
• Mfr
• Model
• Type
• Bar Feeder Collet Style and OD
• Guide Bushing Style
• Main Spindle Collet Style
• Sub Spindle Collet Style

These templates then become the basis for our Tooling Lists.  Tooling Lists are essentially defined by 

• Customer Number
• Part Number 
• Revision Level
• Machine #
• Occasionally material OD when we have the same job that has run with different size bar stock 

I won’t list all of the items that we include, but suffice it to say, it includes enough information for someone to gather all of the needed tooling and begin machine setup.  It also provides them with Mfr names and P/Ns so any missing tooling can be ordered.

There are probably better ways to do this, but this is working for us at the moment.

Of course the Matrix is only used for higher volume items.  This leaves thousands of other tools that are not in the Matrix and are not managed.  Many of these items are just loose in drawers.  It’s a bit of a nightmare and probably results in us not using tools that are on-hand for a job because they tool can’t be easily identified or you have to look through 25 tools to find the one you want.

My dilemma is how to manage this tooling.  I have spreadsheets Apple/IOS (numbers) for many items now, but that is certainly not a good long-term solution and it doesn’t really manage the inventory.  One options is to use the Matrix to manage all of our tooling.  We can establish a Non-Automatic cabinet that allows us to use the Matrix software to manage items outside of the Matrix.  I have concerns about the file maintenance required to implement this solution and “wasting time” entering one off tooling for a particular customer/job that we may never see again.  Of course that tooling certainly could be used on another job.