Design of a tooling database implementation for an existing facility

One of the most critical resources for many manufacturing facilities is too ling. To properly control tooling and make tool-related data available to d ifferent manufacturing activities, tooling databases are often employed. Im plementing a tooling database around computer hardware/software in an exist ing facility, however, can be difficult. This paper describes how one U.S. aircraft component manufacturer tackled problems encountered in trying to i mplement a single tooling database in their facility. Three problems were f ound: some tooling data were already located in another database; one softw are application requiring tooling data already had its own internal databas e; and various computer hardware platforms were used in different departmen ts, making a single interface difficult. The problems were solved by employ ing two databases, via various software agents, and creating a platform-ind ependent interface to the primary database. The resulting implementation pr oved a viable approach for the facility, and provides a good example of how such database implementation problems can be handled. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sc ience B.V. All rights reserved.