Life Cycle Management of Cutting Tools: Comprehensive Acquisition and Aggregation of Tool Life Data

The complexity and number of variants of today's cutting tools is constantly growing due to the customer-specific requirements. These requirements and constantly changing circumstances in manufacturing environment can result in complications for the tool management since conventional tool histories and tool management systems are not pursuing a comprehensive approach to collect all necessary data along the tool life cycle. To identify and evolve dependencies of all relevant processes and process parameters, support tool manufacturers and their development departments as well as end users wanting to extend tool life to its fullest, tool history data must be distributed. Once tools have an individual tool ID, the acquisition of tool usage data via installation of process monitoring devices, together with tracking data and information of individual tools enable a holistic knowledge base and the adaption of tool concepts to fit the steadily changing circumstances in manufacturing environment. The objective of this research project is to support optimisation procedures in early stages of the tool life cycle by developing a generic tool history data pool. A methodical approach was developed for defining tool history data to support the information flow by using a life cycle process model. The intention is to detect and track relevant data and their sources such as MES, ERP, NC control, identification technology and sensors in stations located in the tool life cycle and allocate and distribute the history data from the shop floor to suitable process owners. The approach supports tool life cycle management and can lead to enhancing tool performance. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.