| Summary: | This work concentrates on the newly growing science of managing tooling in conventional manufacturing. Various Tool Management (TM) problems and the approaches suggested by other researchers to solve these problems are given. This work establishes the basic structure of TM applicable to a conventional manufacturing. Systems Analysis and Design Methodology (SSADM) is used to study the information needs of a typical TM System. It is stressed that the majority of TM problems are due to unavailability of correct information. Success of any TM system depends upon having a good Information System. This work focuses on the tool planning problems in batch manufacturing. The causes of tool planning problems are discussed. The research aims to develop a generic methodology for planning the tools. The information required to carry out the primary functions of any Tool Planning System (TPS) is identified. The fundamental characteristics of different tools from the planning perspective are studied in detail. The principles on which a generic TPS could be designed are laid out. The mechanism of a Tool Planning System is developed. The TPS model is implemented using Foxpro, a DBMS. This model illustrates the concepts of planning tools with the information that can be obtained from other functions of manufacturing. The effectiveness of the developed TPS model is investigated using simulation. The impact of the TPS on the performance of a typical Job Shop Environment is studied and compared with other models with traditional stock control approaches. A suitable statistical method is used for analysing and comparing the simulation results. The advantages and the limitations of the TPS are discussed. Some of the potential benefits include, very low tool shortages, minimum number of purchase requirements and better estimation of tool inventory levels. Furthermore, the TPS acts as a firm guideline for planning the tools in time buckets.
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