Nobody likes a fire drill!

In today’s business environment long lead times due to supply chain hurdles can make or break production schedules. Downtime is costly and often avoidable with proper systems in place.

Troutman Machine was manufacturing precision tooling for a large-scale production facility on a regular basis. Depending on production requirements and unforeseen wear and tear the need for this tooling could fluctuate from six weeks ARO to ASAP.

This tooling is critical to the day-to-day operations of our customer and requires extreme details and a functional understanding to produce. The raw materials availability and secondary operations lead times are not conducive to an ASAP delivery requirement.

We sat down with the production and purchasing teams to identify the components that keep the manufacturing lines running. Evaluating annual usages and taking into consideration minimum/maximum levels we were able to establish a Critical Tooling Program.

This new program identified the annual needs of the specific items required and yearly blanket purchase orders are now in place.

Troutman Machine can purchase and secure the raw materials the first of the year locking in the tooling blanks at a fixed cost. We can then produce the various tooling ahead of time along with the heat treatment and surface grinding operations.

By stocking and maintaining pre-determined inventory levels it enables quick turnaround times and minimizes downtimes. Thus, derailing the fire drill we all despise.