New Digital Tool Management System for High Productivity

19 Apr 2022

Subash Ramdoss, DGM-Special Projects, Machining, and Engineering, talks about ELGi’s Tools Management System (TMS), a digital platform developed in-house and deployed to manage manufacturing facilities. This platform makes it easy to track, maintain and manage the lifecycle of all the tools, facilities, and equipment used in the production assembly line.

Cutting-edge TMS Platform

In a single assembly line of approximately 8000 square feet, about 500 tools and equipment are required to ensure consistent build quality. With ELGi’s new TMS platform, the facilities manager can digitally map the range of hand tools, including spanners, torque tools, testing systems, gauges, material-handling trolleys, fixtures to specialized expensive Digital SPMs and testing facilities. The platform also successfully maps information related to critical subsystem parts, asset owners, maintenance in charge, vendor information, item price, warranty, maintenance frequency, visual checkpoints, and expected life necessary to monitor and maintain the performance of the assets.

This cutting-edge digital platform allows manufacturing facilities to map out a matrix of responsibilities and workflows to maintain specific assets, automated alerts for asset replacement, maintenance, and performance monitoring without manual intervention. Recognition, after-service performance feedback, and replacement processes are incorporated into the workflow. While designing the platform, a workflow for defect replacement requests for assembly tools with an approval process is also included.

Benefits Galore

This system ensures that all the tools and equipment used in the production lines are maintained and kept in prime condition to assure the build quality in the assembly process.
The quality and life cycle costs of the tools, facilities, annual maintenance contracts are monitored, and decisions on future purchase choices can be well informed based on actual performance data.
The activities are well planned; ownership matrix and responsibilities are maintained between different stakeholders, such as production, maintenance, quality, stores, suppliers, and machining and engineering teams. Elimination of frequent follow-up and firefighting improves white-collar productivity and higher morale of blue-collar employees.
This digital tool management system ensures proactive maintenance of all the assets that are essential to the products build quality and creates a complete asset register for assembly lines. Based on this pilot project’s success, this Digital Tool Management System will be deployed across our other assembly lines systematically.