Tools are the backbone of manufacturing. Without tools, CNC machining services aren’t even possible. But when shops have poorly maintained and disorganized tools, it’s almost as bad as having no tools at all.
At Moseys, we’ve transformed our approach to tooling with a comprehensive storage and maintenance program—and the results speak volumes:
- Increased productivity
- Reduced lead times
- Stable customer pricing
The Domino Effect of Disorganized Tooling
Tooling and fixturing verification and maintenance procedures are essential for our quality-obsessed Anaheim machine shop. Without these practices, our customers, our team, and our entire company would suffer.
Quality: the first hit
Part quality is first to tank in shops that neglect their tooling. Machines with workholding or tooling discrepancies are a gut punch to a shop’s success. Customers leave, team morale plummets, and certifications are jeopardized.
Inefficiency: the invisible expense
Time is money, and inefficient tooling management is like having a hole in your pocket.
Without well-organized tooling, shop teams spend more time on scavenger hunts than doing meaningful work. Otherwise productive operators can lose large chunks of their day wandering the shop trying to find a tool. And as good as wandering may be for the soul, it’s a terrible way to control costs.
Morale: the quiet casualty
Nothing can demoralize a team quite like forcing them to search for tools. They see the impact of poor tool management, and they know their time is being wasted. You can call it “organized chaos” and insist that it “works for you,” but the data never supports that claim.
As the crew chief on any racing team will tell you, pit stops win races. Setups, changeovers, and material repositionings are the “pit stops” of a machine shop. If you want to run a winning shop, you have to make your pit stops efficient.
Spending: the runaway mine train
When shops don’t know which tools they already have, they can wind up with dozens of the same tools spread out all over your shop—and they’ll never even know it. These uncontrolled expenses get passed on to customers in the form of increased prices—prices the shop could have controlled had they only prioritized an efficient tool management system.
The Moseys Method: Tool Management, Evolved
Over the past decade, we’ve developed a meticulous tooling management system that translates to real, quantifiable benefits for our valued customers:
- 10% shorter lead times. Faster turnaround expands our capacity, increases our profitability, and enables continual improvement throughout our Anaheim machine shop.
- Pricing stability. Despite the inflating cost of tooling, our tool management practices enable us to maintain stable pricing for our customers.
- Compliance. Tool organization isn’t only convenient; it’s required of all AS9100 shops and matters tremendously to customers such as those in the aerospace industry.
These three efficiencies play the biggest roles in our program’s success:
1. Streamlined storage and retrieval
We implemented a digital kiosk for efficient tool retrieval. When a team member needs a tool, they log in and locate it in the user interface. The system then unlocks the correct cabinet and directs the individual to retrieve their tool from the appropriate bin.
2. Inventory planning
To be clear, our system isn’t about loss prevention. Tools are known consumables. What our program allows for is proactive planning that ensures we have the tools we need for every upcoming job without incurring waste.
With our tooling inventory system, we program, design, and plan for our tooling needs according to the tools we already have. Today, Moseys maintains an extensive tool library of over 1,000 individual SKUs!
3. Supplier collaboration
At Moseys, our tooling supplier is part of our team. He’s in our Anaheim machine shop almost every day, evaluating upcoming projects and researching the best tool for each job. He also works directly with our programmers to ensure they know the correct toolpath speeds and other tool-specific details that impact our CNC machining services.
The Moseys Promise
Our emphasis on tool management delivers so much more than a tidy shop; it guarantees exceptional value to our customers and operational excellence throughout our team. In essence, tool management isn’t a checkbox on a to-do list—it’s an investment in the future of manufacturing.
From our shop floor to your front door, our focus on tool management is a commitment to giving you superior quality, on-time delivery, and reliable cost-efficiency.
We’re not simply doing business as usual. Moseys is setting the gold standard. And that, friends, is a true game-changer.
