The importance of tool and equipment control

Making your workshop more efficient, and your workforce accountable.

Here are some key reasons why:

• Safety: Engineering projects involve the use of various tools and equipment that can cause serious injuries or property damage if mishandled or misplaced. Proper tool control and management practices ensure that all tools are tracked, maintained, and used safely in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions.
• Efficiency: Tools and equipment play a vital role in the success of any engineering project. Proper tool control and management practices help engineers and technicians quickly locate and use the correct tool at the right time. This reduces the time needed to complete tasks and increases overall productivity. Cost-effectiveness: Loss, theft, or damage to expensive tools and equipment can significantly impact the budget and profitability of an engineering project. Proper tool control and management practices help ensure that all tools and equipment are accounted for, well-maintained, and properly stored when not in use. This reduces the risk of loss, theft, or damage and helps maintain project profitability.
• Consistency: By ensuring that tools are managed and regularly reported on, organisations can ensure that tasks and operations are performed in the same manner each time. Using different standards of tools and equipment due to loss or misplacement increases the risk of variations to the agreed working practices and has potential knock-on effects to quality standards and consistency of output. Tool control and management solutions along with regular reporting, significantly reduce these risks.
• Demonstrates Standards: An investment in a suitable tool control and management solution establishes a standard that cannot be ignored by team members and colleagues. Visual Tool Control solutions whether it be foam inlays in drawers or visual shadow boards provide an instant benchmark for how an area should be presented and maintained. These solutions, coupled with regular reporting, make it instantly apparent when tools are not returned to locations or checked, and more importantly can represent a drop in standards.
• Improves Morale: One benefit of tool and equipment management and control is the improvement in morale as a result. Most people working in engineering and maintenance projects want to spend their time focussing on the task in-hand and by ensuring that tooling and equipment is available, in good working order and where it SHOULD be, are contributing factors in improving the morale within Engineering teams. Interestingly, to further this point, an investment in a system that allows users to quickly and efficiently report any issues with tooling and equipment and in-turn enable corrective actions to be carried out are by far and away one of the best ways to ensure that morale within teams is maintained.

In summary, tool control and management are essential for the effective and safe operation of engineering projects. By implementing proper tool control and management practices, engineers and technicians can maximise productivity, reduce costs, and improve overall project outcomes.

KIT enables customers to build an inventory of all relevant equipment and tooling whilst also allowing the recording and reporting of lost and damaged items. The ability to also store data-sheets, calibration records and usage instructions means that all relevant information can be stored in one place, accessible by all from any internet-enabled device.

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For more info or to book an online demo click here or email sales@thisiskit.com