Tooling life tracker template for press tools and plastic moulds

Give every tool a permanent number stamped on the body and repeated in the tracker, then add the part number, customer, press and shelf location. Staff find any tool in a minute.

Record the type, because a progressive die, a compound die and a plastic mould each wear in a different place and at a different rate. Punches and die buttons lose edge. Moulds suffer at the parting line, the vents, the ejector pins and the gate, where flash and short shots first appear.

Then add the counters. Count strokes for press tools and shots for moulds, then add the cavity count so that shots convert into parts made on that run.

Read the machine counter at the end of each run and write it on the run sheet, never estimating from the parts made. Scrap, trial parts and setup strokes all wear the tool, so every one of them belongs in the total, even the ones nobody ships.

Enter it the same shift. A count updated at month-end is a count nobody trusts, so the tracker should show total life, life since sharpening and life since major repair as separate columns.

If a counter fails, mark the gap, estimate it from the run sheets and label the figure estimated so nobody mistakes it for a reading.

Pick a life limit for each tool from its history: for a press tool, the strokes between sharpenings that kept burr height within the drawing. For a mould, use the shots between cleaning, venting and polishing jobs that kept flash and short shots off the part, measured on the last three runs.

Set two flags. Amber appears when the remaining life covers fewer than two planned runs, and red appears at the limit set from the tool’s own history. Amber books the tool room. Red stops the tool being issued. A toolmaker must check it first.

Pair the count with a measurement. A first-off check of the key dimension or burr height can pull the flag forward when wear is faster than the count suggests.

Add the downtime to each line. Each sharpening, weld repair, regrind or polish is a line in the tool history with the date, the work done, who did it and the grind amount. Add the count at that point. Grinding takes steel away, and the grind amounts on record show how much steel is left before the die must be rebuilt.

If the tool was out for four days, which jobs waited, and would a spare die set or earlier maintenance have saved them?

Keep failure notes in plain words such as cracked punch, flash at parting line and galled draw radius, because after a year they reveal patterns by part and press.

A spreadsheet works for a few dozen tools if one person updates it daily, but it breaks when counts arrive late or two copies circulate. The planner never sees the red tool.

Software lets the planner see tool status when scheduling, tells the tool room which tools are amber, and carries the history with the tool across customers and part revisions. It can also raise a request for a replacement insert, a spare punch or a second tool when the red flag lands.

Start with your five busiest tools. Fill the template this week, then check whether the counts match the run sheets and whether anyone disagrees with the flags.