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TOOLING & WORKHOLDING: Turning point.

Article Excerpt
There is far more to consider than price alone when selecting turning inserts. By Steed Webzell

Manufacturing economics state that 80% of component costs in western economies are fixed: 31% is hourly rate, 27% is capital machinery cost while 22% is overheads. Only the remaining 20% can be considered variable, comprising of raw material at 17%, and consumables such as cutting tools at just 3%. According to Sandvik Coromant, this means that even securing a 30% reduction in price from your cutting tool supplier will only save 1% of the overall job cost. It is far more rewarding to try and increase productivity.

Sandvik Coromant has a simple example to illustrate this. Let's say a manufacturer spends #10,000 to make 1,000 parts; cost per part is #10. Using the aforementioned percentage break-downs, this means that #3.10 is hourly rate, #2.70 is capital machinery, #2.20 is site costs, #1.70 is material and #0.30 is tooling. If the manufacturer drives down his cutting tool supplier by 33%, the cost of tooling reduces to #0.20 and with it the overall cost per part comes down to #9.90 - a 1% saving. Similarly, if the manufacturer selects a cutting tool offering 50% greater tool life, this again cuts tooling costs to #0.20 and overall cost per part to #9.90, achieving the same 1% saving.

However, a 20% increase in metal removal rate has a directly proportional effect on capacity -...

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