TooLution allows an entire production line to be monitored and managed, and an optional Laser Measurement Module provides a low-cost high-precision tool measurement that allows predictive maintenance. TooLution is a universal tool management systems that can monitor and manage the CNC controllers of all major brands. In addition, it allows the machine tool data across the entire production line to be fully integrated, and provides a user-friendly web interface to a cloud based management platform that provides a growing set of functionalities, such a tool setting compensation and tool bit life prediction.

The TooLution Machine Tool Management Solution is comprised of three components:

1. Laser Measurement Module
This hardware module is a high-precision tool bit measurement device. It can measure tool bit diameter, tool bit breakage and tool bit length. The measurement is done with laser beams in combination of the axial movement and rotation of the motor.

2. Universal Tool Data Collection Box
This box connects to and collects machine tool data from all major brands of CNC controllers (80% market share), including processing time and processing distance.

3. Tool Management Platform
This cloud-based platform warehouses all machine tool data collected from the two components above, and provides a slew of services that allow plant manager to monitor and manage the entire production line, including inventory management, tool schedule and maintenance plan, tool compensation write-back and tool life prediction.

The manufacturing industry is trending toward shorter product cycle time and smaller production quantity with varied customization. This means the production lines need to be flexible and efficient. One critical area that determines the efficiency of a production line is the monitoring and management of the operational aspects of the machine tools used in the production line. This may include the wear-and-tear, energy consumption, precision, production speed, probability of breakage, etc. for every machine tool used in the production line.

The plant manager may want to optimize one or multiple objectives, such as least product defect, fastest production speed, minimal energy consumption, minimal wear-and-tear to the tool, minimal disruption to the production line, etc. To date, what available tool management solution there are provide only limited, inflexible point solution (manage only one machine tool). TooLution, in contrast, provides a very flexible solution that can allows a plant manager to monitor and manage all the machine tools employed in the production line in a simple and holistic way so that certain global objective(s) can be achieved.

TooLution offers a holistic machine tool management solution that integrates tool bit measurement module, CNC controller management module and a cloud-based machine tool management platform, allowing machine tools in the entire production lines to be efficiently monitored and flexibly managed. The flexible management platform even allows new services to be added that can address more and more aspects of the production process and maintenance process. It is a very valuable asset to factories that employ machine tools in its production lines.