In talking with tool shop executives, it became apparent that many do not take the time to analyze their business processes.

Working in a highly competitive environment, firefighting has become the standard mode of operations at most shops. When faced with a challenge, the common reaction is to grab for the most immediate solution—be it purchasing a new machine, extending business hours, outsourcing, or adding a new, detached software solution. As a result, many of these solutions fail to address the root causes of the problem at hand.

More than 50 percent of tool shops polled in the survey indicated that their first priority is to implement advanced technology. Survey analysis2 revealed that many of these implementations have failed to solve the problems for which they were acquired. In one example, a tool shop has recently invested a significant amount of money to purchase additional machines for the purpose of expediting delivery times. While the investment helped speed up machining, it created new bottlenecks throughout the process and ultimately fell short of reducing overall delivery times.

Another tool shop that had trouble meeting delivery times began outsourcing their design work. While the outsourcing increased their cost, the need for greater communication between parties negated any improvement in delivery times.
Through the analysis it was revealed from tool shop executives that many investments in technology failed to deliver the expected results; hence, it’s clear that tool shops need more than better technology; they need someone to help them improve business processes.