Prepare tools for a job

Prerequisites: A Tool Assembly design exists in the Library, or a released job if you’re using the Setup Assistant. Components are in stock.

Required permission: Production → Tools — User or above to create and release a tool (Admins can release any tool; Managers and Users only the tools they created); Inventory → Pick Lists — User or above to validate the pick lists; Production → Tool Transfers — User or above to move the tool to a machine.

For a whole job at once, use Engineering’s Setup Assistant — it reads every operation in the job and generates the Tool records, Tool Transfers, and Pick Lists needed in one step. The steps below cover preparing one tool at a time, which is also what the Setup Assistant does under the hood for each tool it creates.

Create a tool

1. In the sidebar, click Production → Tools → + Create.
2. Select the Tool Assembly this tool is built from (or a Category for an ad-hoc tool with no assembly).
3. Choose the Location and enter the Name; the current form does not include a Life Limit field.
4. Save. A Tool ID is assigned automatically and the tool starts in Draft status.

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Fig. 1: Create new Tool — choose the assembly and location, then confirm or edit the suggested name. The current form has no Life Limit field.

Generate a pick list for its components

1. On the tool record, click Create Picklist.
2. Tooling Metrics checks the Tool Assembly’s bill of materials against what’s already on the tool, and searches each Warehouse Access Point for the remaining components.
3. A Pick List is created per WAP that has stock for the remaining items.

Process the pick list

Follow Process a pick list to pick the components — either from the office Pick Lists list or at the WAP terminal.

Assemble the tool

1. As each pick list line is validated, the picked items land on the tool — the tool’s Items List tab shows what’s currently mounted, and Assembly History logs the move itself.
2. Physically mount the components onto the tool, following the assembly drawing (open it from the tool record’s assembly-viewer icon). Each serialized piece’s condition is updated by the stock moves you validate — see Track tool condition.
3. Once every required component is on the tool, it’s marked Completed automatically. You can also toggle this manually with Mark as Completed / Mark as Incomplete.
4. Click Release, then print a Tool Tag — a barcode/data matrix label carrying the Tool ID — to attach to the physical tool.

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Fig. 2: Items List — components appear here as their pick lists are validated. This active tool shows Mark as Retired and Print Tag in its action bar.

Move the tool to a machine

A tool reaches a machine one of two ways: directly on a Pick List (when its destination is set to the Machine instead of the tool’s assembly station), or afterward via a Tool Transfer from the WAP to the Machine, created and processed at the WAP terminal:

1. At the WAP, open Tool Station → Tool Transfers. Under New Tool Transfer to, click the destination machine.
2. Add the tool(s) from the inventory panel, then click Create. The transfer is created in Waiting status.
3. Click Check Availability, then Validate.
4. Validating moves the tool’s location to the machine — it now appears in the machine’s tool crib, ready for a slot number — and posts usage cost for every cost-per-pick item currently assembled in it.

To assign the tool a slot number in the machine’s tool crib, see Manage a tool crib.

Notes

• The Setup Assistant can be re-run for the same job; it skips tools that already exist in the right location.
• Tool Tags use the Tool ID’s data matrix code for scanner-based tracking at the WAP.

Related articles

• Process a pick list
• Record tool runtime
• Track tool condition
• Process a return list
• Manage a tool crib