On most small extrusion lines, a die’s history lives in someone’s head: when it was last polished, how it ran last time, what was done to it after the problem in the spring. It works until that person is on holiday, and then the die comes out halfway through a run with a surface finish nobody can accept.
Why dies deserve a log
- Finish and dimensions drift gradually, so problems are easy to miss until they’re rejects.
- An unplanned die change mid-run costs the stoppage, the scrap on restart, and often a missed delivery.
- Compounds with abrasive fillers wear dies faster than others, so experience with one product doesn’t transfer to the next.
What to record
Keep it short enough that people will actually do it. For each die, log every event with the date and who did it:
- Runs: the job, and the metres or hours it ran.
- Cleans: routine cleaning at the end of a run.
- Polishes: the maintenance that resets the count.
- Repairs and modifications: what was done, and why.
- Where it lives: its storage location, so nobody has to hunt for it.
Set a maintenance point for each die
Decide, die by die, how many runs (or metres, or hours) it can do before it needs polishing. Start with your team’s experience, then adjust as the log builds up evidence. The point isn’t precision on day one; it’s having a number everyone can see.
Check the die before you plan the job
This is where a log earns its keep. When you schedule a job, look at the die it needs. If it’s at or past its maintenance point, plan the polish before the job, not during it. A die that’s due a polish is a scheduling problem, not a breakdown, as long as you spot it in time.
Make logging quick
- Keep the log in one place, next to the die store, not in three notebooks.
- Tag every die with its number, and put the same number everywhere it’s used.
- Use tick boxes for routine events, and only ask for words when something unusual happens.
- Better still, scan it: a label on the die tag, scanned when it goes on and comes off the line, logs the run with no writing at all.
To start today, our free die and tooling maintenance log does all of this in Excel, including the service warnings.
When the spreadsheet stops being enough
Mannin Systems does all of this as part of the day’s work: booked at the station, checked against the recipe, and traceable from supplier to customer. See the die log in the working demo.