By Lindsey Munson, editor, The American Mold Builder

Mold builders’ customers face increasing pressure to optimize asset management – balancing uptime, traceability and compliance without overcomplicating processes or disrupting daily operations. Progressive Components, based in Wauconda, Illinois, is modernizing the mold industry through innovative, user-friendly solutions that streamline and advance operations under a simple, effective platform strategy. These new tools enable mold builders to provide their molders with an easier-to-manage asset.

In a recent webinar, “Simplify Asset Management Without Complicating Your Life,” Sujit Sheth, monitoring sales manager for Progressive, explored common challenges in mold asset oversight and shared practical digital strategies to simplify and strengthen asset management. His main message, “Simplifying,” does not mean cutting corners – it means redefining how companies treat their tooling assets. The American Mold Builder summarized the webinar, which offered insights into the obstacles companies face and how they can turn data into actionable strategies and expert solutions for creating a strong, streamlined asset management system.

Why Asset Management Matters
For processors, the mold is one of their most complex assets, as it is highly costly to build or modify, has serious consequences if it underperforms or fails, and often has a long service life. Sheth said, “Molds are indisputably valuable assets. If those assets are not being maintained, one can’t expect that they’re going to consistently get the productivity of Day One two years down the road. Also, having the right amount of tooling is critical. No molder wants to have extra tooling, and yet no molder wants to be short on tooling – so understanding how much you have, what it’s producing, where it’s located and total capacity is important to running a business effectively.” For a mold builder, that means not only designing and building the mold, but also providing the ability to monitor lifecycle data, review maintenance tracking, view the mold’s location and access performance metrics needed by the molder
and OEM.

An everyday reality is that many companies end up managing tooling assets with spreadsheets, logbooks or fragmented ERP modules, leading to unseen gaps (i.e., unknown locations, undocumented PM work, hidden downtime and untracked tooling history) that become hidden costs. Sheth said, “You cannot manage what you cannot see, and the system makes it easy to track GPS locations, maintenance and documents efficiently from a single platform, from anywhere.” For mold builders, offering asset visibility as part of the tooling hand-off can differentiate by helping reduce downstream issues.

A Simplified Framework
To help mold builders turn insight into action, Sheth outlined four pillars that form the foundation of a simplified tooling-management system:

1. Visibility and Centralized Data – Establish a comprehensive asset platform with location, serial number, maintenance history, cycle count, spare parts and condition information.
2. Strategic Prioritization – Not all molds are equal. Identify those critical to quality, uptime or customer programs, and focus resources where impact is highest (with preventive maintenance on high-risk tools, monitoring of high-cycle molds and tracking of molds that move between sites).
3. Standardized Process and Workflow – Define triggers, workflows and ownership. Clarify when preventative maintenance or replacement is due, who approves downtime and where documents are stored.
4. DataDriven Continuous Improvement – Once visibility and workflows are in place, companies can use data to benchmark and improve cycle counts, downtime, maintenance cost per tool, reject rates and more.

Turning Insights into Action
Understanding the pillars is essential, but it’s only the starting point. The real value comes from applying them inside the company. To help molders take action, Sheth said, “Start small and scale by testing the asset-tracking or mold-monitoring system on the top 10-20% of molds by value or risk. This allows companies to show early wins, refine deployment and build organizational buy-in. Equally important is engaging internal stakeholders, including tooling, mold maintenance, production planning, procurement and IT.”

Technology should be accessible and easily integrated into companies, not an added complexity. While fully featured systems may be attractive, many companies can make significant progress with simpler tools like QR-code asset tags, cloud-based dashboards and mobile-enabled platforms. Sheth said, “It is important to include all tooling assets – not just the molds themselves. The ‘non-mold’ assets, such as auxiliaries, gauges, end-of-arm tooling and more, directly affect uptime and profitability. Including them in the same asset management framework provides a complete view of the total tooling cost of ownership.”

Finally, Sheth said, “It is key to link the asset-management system to the mold builder hand-off. When a mold is delivered to the molder or OEM, providing the asset tag, documentation, cycle-history baseline, and recommended maintenance schedule and service tasks not only adds value but also reduces downstream disputes and reinforces the partnership.”

Converting Complexity Into Clarity
For mold manufacturers, partnering with their customers to assist in their asset management doesn’t have to be complicated. Sheth’s approach proves that it can be modern, actionable and, most importantly, simple enough to be sustainable for any company.

By assisting with these key tactics – starting small, engaging stakeholders, standardizing technology and including all assets to better integrate the mold hand-off – mold builders can help molders transform how they maximize their tooling investments. The result goes beyond efficiency; it delivers clarity, control and confidence across the entire supply chain.

More information: www.procomps.com/monitoring