Tooling

Tooling is the most expensive upfront investment for a company when producing parts. Getting visibility to existing tooling for similar parts becomes critical to reduce tooling costs. Using a text or part number based search across multiple systems is inaccurate and inefficient due to incorrect part numbering, part naming, and part classification. The problem is compounded for global companies by language differences.

By using VizSeek, visual and shape search, production engineers can find similar parts for potential reuse of existing tooling. The engineer can upload a photo, hand sketch, 2D sketch, 2D drawing or a 3D model to locate existing parts and or tooling in their database. Not only exact parts / tooling is returned but also similar parts. Along with the CAD data, part attributes and tooling details are also visible to the engineer. By reusing existing tooling, time to market and lead times are reduced.

Impact

- $6,000 is the average cost of tooling per part (CES)

- 8-12 weeks is the average time to produce tooling (CES)

- 30% of tooling can be reused (McKinsey)

- Identification of available tooling can reduce upfront investment, production lead time and time to market

- 1000 new parts produced/year with a tooling cost of $6,000,000

- 30% possible reuse, 10% of the 30% actual reused

Savings: $180,000/year