Following is a list of seven daily habits to include—the most mentioned, or in some cases, the most vehemently defended. Here they are in order of frequency:

Promote working communication between repair technicians.
• Many times repair technicians exist only in their own worlds—or bench—oblivious to what someone else is doing or how they do it. Mold experience (tips and techniques) needs to be shared among those performing the job.

Promote a systemized approach.
• Freelancing repairs leads to inconsistent practices and results. There might be many different ways to disassemble, clean and reassemble a mold, but one technique will work best and should be standardized among technicians.

Continuously strive for the proper tools and machinery to perform mold repair more efficient and accurately.
• Use your CMMs to cost justify (ROI is the only argument bean counters understand) the necessary tools to clean and repair molds. Simply saying “we need this” won’t work in today’s lean manufacturing environment.

Prioritize mold work wisely.
• Don’t job-hop your technicians. Pulling a repair tech off one job to hurriedly start another is frustrating, confusing and can lead to mistakes that cause unscheduled mold stops/breakdowns through incorrect mold assembly.

Run a professional shop.
• Trying to be “one of the boys” complicates the working relationship and can render job assignments suspect. Be a mentor to the younger techs and be conscious of older tech skill “specialties”.

Train your techs.
• Keep your techs and yourself abreast of new technologies that can impact the effectiveness of their skills and job performance. Attend seminars, trade shows and conferences to expose your techs to other methods of work from which your shop can benefit.

Be an active manager

.• Discuss maintenance plans, talk to processors and do whatever it takes to promote teamwork and knowledge sharing. There is no place for prima donnas in today’s toolroom.
These seven habits—and whether young or older, and practiced daily—will bring your team together and allow managers to focus on a larger picture while trusting repair technicians to make smarter, better thought out decisions when operating on the life support systems—that we call molds—of your company.