Tom Ulrich

An effective PM for dies can't happen without a skilled, engaged workforce. When it comes to uncovering ideas on how to improve a process, workers are the experts.

To realize the importance of a good die preventive maintenance program, all a stamper has to do is recall the last time a press line shut down because of a major die problem. The downtime and reaction of the frustrated customer likely are hard to forget. The associated costs, however, aren’t typically documented. That shouldn’t be the case, because those costs can be very important in trying to convince management that a robust tooling maintenance program is worth every cent invested in it.

The author relates his experience as preventive maintenance (PM) coordinator at a Big 3 automaker. The purpose of preventative maintenance is to gain control of the processes. This begins with data collection on die sets, die failure and material handling damage that will identify weak areas in the stamping process. The author's team began with one set of dies and eventually its PM program was so successful that it was implemented throughout the entire plant.