Tooling digitalization can be the solution for today’s manufacturing systems, where tool failures can cause as much as 20% downtime, leading to significant productivity and profit losses.
Therefore, managing the lifecycle of the tool supply chain is essential for achieving the four main goals of advanced manufacturing: improved quality, increased efficiency, reduced energy consumption, and minimized pollution.
You can also read: How to Increase Injection Mold Life
As the 21st century progressed, the rise of Industry 4.0 brought further changes. Some of them were the integration of the Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, and cloud computing into manufacturing. Sensors were increasingly used to collect real-time data on tooling performance, enabling proactive maintenance and lifecycle management.
Today, tooling digitalization encompasses not only monitoring and data collection but also advanced predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. These innovations allow manufacturers to optimize tooling processes, improve quality control, and significantly reduce downtime, marking a substantial shift from traditional practices to data-driven, efficient operations.
Despite the increasing significance, demand, and scale of tooling assets and the rise of digitalization, traditional practices remain widespread, even in big and global companies. Many manufacturers still rely on manual data management for their tooling assets.
Plant and tooling managers submit Excel files, often lacking a standardized format. This outdated method offers minimal strategic value and is vulnerable to human error and manipulation, diminishing the reliability and usefulness of tooling data.
You can also read: The Future of Plastics: The Vision, Chapter 1 of 3
These key areas are driving significant advancements for companies in the whole tool supply chain, enabling more efficient operations, cost savings, and enhanced quality control across their supply chains:
This is the first part to cover this extended topic from the basic point of view, the next chapter will show you some tool milestones that some companies on the tooling supply chain are using to stay competitive and be more aware about what the industry is demanding.
To read more: Tooling Market Report by Type, Material, End Use, and Region 2024-2032
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