Who doesn't know them, the colorful square Lego bricks. Few people know where these popular bricks are produced. Many Lego bricks are produced on injection molding machines in Schwertberg, Austria. This is where Engel has its headquarters. Production plants in Europe, North America and Asia as well as branches and agencies in over 90 countries make Engel a global company. Anyone who thinks globally must also align their company globally. Engel's management consistently pursues this goal. In the area of tool management for machining tools for the company's own mechanical production, a consistent line was to be maintained worldwide. The solution: the introduction of Coscom ToolDirector VM. This paved the way for central services, central organization and central management of tool data in CNC production across all plants worldwide.

The most important aspect of the solution is that the same system is used uniformly in all plants worldwide and that there is also a strategic alignment of the CNC machinery in all plants. Global tool procurement is handled exclusively by the parent company. This means that every Engel plant works with the same cutting tool on the same product. "The same machine, the same tools, the same technology - this applies right down to the measuring devices. For example, it is no longer necessary for a programmer to work in the Chinese plant; instead, it receives all production programs centrally from Austria. For example, production in China receives all important information on the necessary cutting tools via Coscom and can either procure them itself or order them via Austria. The variety of tools has been reduced many times over with ToolDirector VM. 4,500, i.e. almost 30 percent of the total of 17,500 tool data, have been eliminated to date, and the corresponding obsolete tools have been scrapped. Almost 3,000 of the 23,000 tool parts lists have also been eliminated.

Now the programmer can conveniently access the central tool database in the software and see which tool he can use. This saves a considerable amount of time. Engel also optimizes the standard tools on the CNC machine using the evaluations in the Coscom system.

Today, the centralized tool parts list ensures that the cutting tools are assembled in the same way everywhere and that the parts are also available. This reduces non-productive times on the machines. Before the component is placed on the CNC machine, the worker has the information he needs to assemble the tool. He knows in advance which fixture and which tools he needs and whether he has them or needs to procure them. The process is thus secured before the component is placed on the machine. This prevents the machine from coming to a standstill. This ability to plan ahead has now enabled Engel to determine which tools are used where on which machine. This means that tools for overseas can be procured centrally in Austria in good time. As different prices can be obtained from the manufacturers in Austria due to the quantities involved, the company is able to purchase much more cheaply and efficiently.

The centralization of tool management in mechanical production with Coscom has also created a process that did not exist before: the exchange of technology between plants worldwide. If there were previously different solutions for the same machining operations, it is now the case that the plants exchange information with each other and one plant adopts the better machining solution of the other plant. With the tool management process solution, it is now possible to decide which machining tool is best suited. And the plants can see among themselves which plant has which tool in use. This means that uniform decisions can be made worldwide as to which tool makes sense for everyone. The process solution thus significantly supports the optimization of the overall CNC production process in all Engel plants.