Whether you’re in the motor vehicle industry, or the general manufacturing industry, the tools used in your production are an important investment. It is important to protect those tools and their operators to ensure your production is maintaining efficiency, sustainability, and profitability.
First of all, you need to make sure your tools are catering to the needs of your operation. By working with your Atlas Copco representative, you can determine your production’s needs, and together choose the right solution for your operation.
It is important that the tool operators are properly trained on how to use each tool or solution. Tools contain sensitive sensors and transducers that are needed to maximize error proofing and data collection. Mishandling or improperly storing tools can cause tools to malfunction or not work to their maximum capability.
So where should you store your tools? Avoid storing your tools on the ground. If you have to set your tools down, use care when doing so. Avoid dropping tools, not even purposely tools are dropped more often than we could even imagine. Fixture your tools when possible. If you’re unable, utilize some of Atlas Copco’s total workstation items that allow the cable to be festooned properly. Balancers can help prevent tools from hitting the ground when they’re dropped and reduce operator fatigue during use.
This should seem like an obvious tip, but it isn’t so obvious. Tools are meant for fastening joints, not to be used like a hammer! Don’t bang your tools! It’s also important to practice good cable management, don’t carry the tool by its cable.
When choosing a tool for an application, be sure to respect the tool’s torque capability. If you’re constantly running at the tool’s maximum torque level, the tool will be more stressed. If you are using tools that are properly aligned with your torque needs, there won’t be a need to run your tool to its maximum torque capability.
When you buy a new car, they tell you to keep up on oil changes and tire rotations to keep your car running at its best. Tools are no different, it is crucial to keep up on regular maintenance. When programming your tool, be sure to set up preventative maintenance alerts. This will notify you when you should schedule your tool’s regular maintenance. For example, electric assembly tools recommend maintenance after 250,000 cycles, or once per year. Atlas Copco provides a number of service offerings to help optimize performance, improve production uptime, and quality within a controlled maintenance cost. Servaid is also a good source of maintenance information and safety instructions for Atlas Copco tools.
If you are interested in learning more about Atlas Copco's electric smart tools, or the solutions we have to help optimize their performance, contact us to schedule a demo today!