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Setup Sheet Database

Rooks88

Plastic
Joined
May 17, 2011
Location
CA, usa
The shop i work for has made paper setup sheets for all our parts for over 30 years. I have been working on making a database to keep all this electronically. I have been arguing with myself whether to use a simple excel sheet or create a sql database. The main advantage of the sql database would be the ability to get "metadata" like how many of a given tool size and brand we use, how much we would spend on tools for quoting and similar stuff. Does anyone here think this would be of value and offset the 6+ weeks it would take to make? Thanks.
 
I say start small. I make setup sheets that are no more than a solidworks drawing with a view of the part, XYZ zero points, parallel and stock size and tool list. Works great for us, a printed copy gets put in the folder and labeled by customer, and the solidworks file is stored along with the cam file on the network for setup guys to reference if needed.
 
The shop i work for has made paper setup sheets for all our parts for over 30 years. I have been working on making a database to keep all this electronically. I have been arguing with myself whether to use a simple excel sheet or create a sql database. The main advantage of the sql database would be the ability to get "metadata" like how many of a given tool size and brand we use, how much we would spend on tools for quoting and similar stuff. Does anyone here think this would be of value and offset the 6+ weeks it would take to make? Thanks.

If you really want to put-in the time and do a SQL it would definitely be nice. I'm not sure how your shop system works but at my place we do paper Setup-Sheets as well. It would be nice to have all of the setup sheets in a program, for easy search and stuff but i don't think it will really make a big difference and be worth that much of your time. If I set down and made a Web Application using PHP/JavaScript/MySQL i would take me probably 30-40hours to have a nice complete system. But if its going to take you more then that - I would only do it if I'd get paid for it.

The reason I think if won't make a big difference is because you one way or the other still have to enter the data. What would be nice is if you could make some plugin for CAM and click: "Create Setup Sheet" - like CamWorks has(though it sucks) and have it automatically generated would be awesome and would save time.
 
I use a search program called Super Finder XT. You can search for strings within files of a specified extension, so I can search all NC files, or all for a customer, for occurrences of a given tool name.
 
Excel easier.
SQL and I have to ask how much experience in setting up a database and doing complicated queries or data mining.
For some here Sequel is like falling off a log for others it can be hard to work with.
Who else has to deal with the system you will build after you are gone?
Me, I'm like all over database but have seen some Excel systems that were amazing in use in very, very large shops.
One does not expect to see this in the thousand employee per site level but it works.
Bob
 
What I'm more interested in, is the opinion of the usefulness of the information you can only get if you have this data in a database. Would you find information like how many of a given tool you use in a year or being able to get the total cost for all tools for a given part. I know excel would be much quicker but it would be unable to relate data between parts and tools. Thanks again for the opinions.
 
If you really want to put-in the time and do a SQL it would definitely be nice. I'm not sure how your shop system works but at my place we do paper Setup-Sheets as well. It would be nice to have all of the setup sheets in a program, for easy search and stuff but i don't think it will really make a big difference and be worth that much of your time. If I set down and made a Web Application using PHP/JavaScript/MySQL i would take me probably 30-40hours to have a nice complete system. But if its going to take you more then that - I would only do it if I'd get paid for it.

The reason I think if won't make a big difference is because you one way or the other still have to enter the data. What would be nice is if you could make some plugin for CAM and click: "Create Setup Sheet" - like CamWorks has(though it sucks) and have it automatically generated would be awesome and would save time.

Mastercam has a setup sheet generator of sorts. Never put much time into making it "usuable"... it is OK I guess, but alot of un-neccessary info IMO, each op (even for same tool) pic, XYZ), etc, but turns out even a simple program will generate a dozen sheets of setup info... maybe some here has better experience with it than I do.

What I'm more interested in, is the opinion of the usefulness of the information you can only get if you have this data in a database. Would you find information like how many of a given tool you use in a year or being able to get the total cost for all tools for a given part. I know excel would be much quicker but it would be unable to relate data between parts and tools. Thanks again for the opinions.


Sounds like you are looking for more than general setup info. Not sure how/where/what that translates into "setup" info. Seems like 2 different things to me. Operator doesn't necessarily need to know how many 1/4" endmills are used per year/job etc... unless they are going thru way too many?

Used to be a few years back, places like Fastenal and MSC would do vending machines for free, and you could arrange your own terms (auto order when stock is less than 5-10 etc), don't know where that is at these days...
 
Used to be a few years back, places like Fastenal and MSC would do vending machines for free, and you could arrange your own terms (auto order when stock is less than 5-10 etc), don't know where that is at these days...

So we have a vending machine at our shop. The way it works is: Some person comes into the shop every week and re-stocks the tools, but the cool thing about it - is that you don't actually buy the tool if you don't take it out. As soon as you vended a tool into your hand - you bought it.
 
Try the product called Evernote. When combined with Scansnap Scanners, it will save PDFs with full text search capability, notebooks with sub-notebooks, and unlimited tagging of individual documents. You can download a free copy to try it out. All data is backed up to the cloud, and with a paid subscription can be accessed on tablets, phones, and PCs with the proper user IDs and passwords. On the PC, a local copy is kept so it can be accessed even if the network is down.
 
So we have a vending machine at our shop. The way it works is: Some person comes into the shop every week and re-stocks the tools, but the cool thing about it - is that you don't actually buy the tool if you don't take it out. As soon as you vended a tool into your hand - you bought it.

Yep. That's how ours was setup. No charge until it came out of machine. Slicker than snot if you use alot of the same tools. Always a sharp one at the ready.
 
The shop i work for has made paper setup sheets for all our parts for over 30 years. I have been working on making a database to keep all this electronically. I have been arguing with myself whether to use a simple excel sheet or create a sql database. The main advantage of the sql database would be the ability to get "metadata" like how many of a given tool size and brand we use, how much we would spend on tools for quoting and similar stuff. Does anyone here think this would be of value and offset the 6+ weeks it would take to make? Thanks.

you can use microsoft access and modify there northwind sample database to fit your needs. it would work exactly like you need. use it to print out inspection reports as well as pictures and everything else.
Or just build one out of excel. or even one from scratch.
The problem for me was inputting the info into the system. the busier I got the less I kept up on it, so I just wrote everything on a pc of paper. since I have time over the holiday week I was going to start what I finished.

also use it as a job tracker. there so many things it can be used for
 
I have already built such a database in access. I will be adding this to it but looking at the requirements for our shop, this addition will be at least twice as much work to make it work the way i think it needs to (tool inventory, setup sheet revision control, cross reference tool types(i.e. garrs tool number and other manufacturer equivalents), tool pricing). I'm really just after some thought on the value of being able to do that versus a simple excel sheet.
 
Here's the basic problem: MS has made Excel way to "smart and capable", letting people "think" that it works well as a database, but it doesn't. If you have reasonably good DB experience, you will wonder why people use Excel for anything other than "one time" analysis (e.g., you export some data out of a database to do some unique analysis work to make a decision).

Here's two suggestions: 1. Use MS Access. People who (again) think they know Excel really well will say Access is no good but I can assure you they are incorrect. You can always update to another system but, from what you describe, Access will be way more capable than what you need. 2. Find a programmer. This is a commodity skill. The only thing you need to do is adequately describe (in pretty good detail) what you need so that they programmer can do it correctly. You can go online and find people in India who will do this for around $10/hr.

One final note: I'll be shocked if someone doesn't come on and disagree with me, but that's no guarantee that I'm wrong. I'm an expert on both (used them off & on for over 30 years) and I can absolutely assure you that Access is way more capable than Excel for processing data on a regular basis (i.e. doing the same thing over and over again but with different data). It reminds me of the days back when people used calculators. Anyone who switched from TI to HP knew how much better it was, nobody when from HP back to TI. Anyone who uses Access knows how much more capable it is.

The Dude
 
You'll get no disagreement on this from me. I have built a a database for my shop that nearly equivalent to programs like Jobboss( at least in all the things we use jobboss for). My only real question in all this is if the data i can get from the database is worth the time put into making it. All the people i talk to in the industry seem to respond to the possible data you can get with something like this with "well that seems nice but i dont see the usefulness of it..." I was just hoping to get a larger sample of views but everyone ere is arguing over the program when i all i care about is the value of the data. Thanks
 
I'll say two things that hopefully will help. First, a custom database, if done "correctly" (functional and efficient) is almost always justifiable. Second, it's almost always more efficient to hire out the programming IF (and I really mean "IFFFF!!!!") you can correctly spec out the database and the "front end". It's almost guaranteed that you'll lose too much opportunity on whatever else you're supposed to do (machining, pogramming, sales, etc.) if you design & program yourself.

Here's some factors that influence this:
1. Almost all software "programs" are way too capable (lots of features you don't need) and are also missing too many functions that you do need (which is why customer apps are much better).
2. The hardest part in all of this is splitting between the "spec'ing" of the program (what it is you want) and then doing (via outside hiring) the database and frontend (user interface). I understand that this is why lots of people want to do all of it themselves but then they do lose that opportunity.

Hope that helps,
The Dude
 
Excel easier.
SQL and I have to ask how much experience in setting up a database and doing complicated queries or data mining.
For some here Sequel is like falling off a log for others it can be hard to work with.
Who else has to deal with the system you will build after you are gone?
Me, I'm like all over database but have seen some Excel systems that were amazing in use in very, very large shops.
One does not expect to see this in the thousand employee per site level but it works.
Bob

Good points.

To OP.

Keep your current hard copy system in place as a backup. When everything is changed up oversights and often bad information and incomplete information can be placed in if one is not very careful.

There were jobs that came up at one shop who had done a lot of work and done well overall with the setup sheets for decades where several jobs had recurring problems.

After I was there for a while I noted there were certain jobs which always produced a scrap part on the first piece consistently.

Everyone who had been there for a while knew this and despite heads up on the topic no changes were made to the original program nor paperwork to correct those flaws in a determined manner.

Improved programs and practices were most often never capitalized upon nor even reviewed and changed. Some machinists just made changes to the program loaded themselves and ran the job better with less scrap and more efficiently.

No permanent change came to the digital record or paper record. True if you might think such knowledge gave advantage in the quality of work one machinist who knew and fixed the problem vs another who did not. It showed in scrapped parts. Oh this is the way we have been doing it for 20 years! Yep I get it you have done great!

I have watched this kind of thing and have been involved with improving this kind of glitch in a shop also. Past a certain point as a new person in a shop not often yet at times I could make some recommendation/s about something and back away as people do not like the work to improve a system which has evolved fairly well over decade/s nor do they like to have anyone bring up anything.


Sometimes change is avoided especially when a shop has plenty of work to do.


I make my own notes for each quirky job and keep working it on my own taking full responsibility personally. I generally will not go out of my way to tell someone about any problems as they generally resist any helpful effort to point this out.

Now that business is slower for most shops what better time is there to do this? You may think the answer is that now is the time yet I propose it is better to do it when it is busy sustained over a complete cycle of time do it in real time as attention to detail is highest. Without input and cooperation by machinists who know the problems you would do better paying a fortune teller to find the mistakes in setup sheets and programs that are there.

Usually faced with the work in that task and it is thankless work most will not bother with the task.

You wish to make things better so do not worry about timing if you get the go ahead do it in whatever manner that you can. Push your superiors to support you doing the most extensive and useful method the do it and insist on no diversions to doing it. Get er done.

It becomes better to do it as you go along but you must have good communication between the machinists and management and programming. Good communication between machinists who alter bad programs which are never changed just to do a job right are not in a good working situation with programming.

Everyone needs to be sure the repository is as acurite and accessible as possible.
 
To the OP, I was hesitant to respond to this thread because I haven't yet implemented a database like you're talking about. I intend to, though. And since I haven't seen a lot of answers to your question about what to do with the data, I'll share my ideas on what I intend to do with the data. None of this has actually been tried out in practice by me, though.

Standardizing of tools: I think that once we start entering tools into the database and seeing what we have and what is used on different jobs, we're going to find a lot of unnecessary redundancy. Why are we stocking 30 different 3/8" end mills when we could probably do the same with just 8? When we're setting jobs, we tend to go on MSC and pick the exact perfect tool that would work. Couldn't we use one that we have that maybe is a little longer but

Quoting/planning of jobs: I think it will be easier to come up with a machining plan when you know what tools you have immediately available to you from your shop's tool library. And if you don't have what you need, at least you know what you need to buy. When we're starting jobs, we tend to go on MSC and pick the exact perfect tool that would work. (This is how we end up with an excess of tools.) Couldn't we use one that we have that maybe is a little longer but would work just fine? And how do we even know that we have that tool?

Tried and true cutting conditions data attached to each tool: If you're running that insert at 800 sfm in 1045 steel on this job, why are you not running it at that speed on that other job of the same material? Also, as you learn more about your tools, you can update the database and have those changes apply to all jobs using those tools. And if a hot new tool comes along that can take that one's place, you can make the changes for that as well.

Searchable processes: Say you need to broach a hole that you've done before but can't remember what size pre-drill you liked to use. And you can't remember what job it was on. Just search it. And then you can even grab the code from that job's program.

Tool storage location: Each tool would have data on where it is stored. For example, Lista cabinet #4, drawer #5, spot 6b. Finding tools in our shop quickly is an area where we could greatly improve. This isn't really metadata, but it is data that could be easily updated for that specific tool if you needed to reorganize your cabinets, or if you wanted to shift that tool over to a vending machine.

Job history: Looking at the history of jobs run across each specific machine could be helpful in determining what machines aren't being utilized correctly and what could work better. For example, maybe you've been running a lot of small parts through one of your bigger lathes. Then maybe consider replacing with a smaller, faster machine. Or you find out that a lot of work going through one of your two-axis lathes has secondary operations that could have been done if the machine had a sub-spindle. This kind of stuff should be known by the machinists/managers/owners, but to have real data behind it gives you a new perspective. It could even help put a monetary value on those machine upgrades.

I also think this whole database would be a case of "We'll find more uses for it as we go." But I think that those uses I wrote about above are enough to justify doing it for me.
 
Hello there. I found this topic to be very interesting since it's directly related to a project we have underway. I work for a manufacturing software development company and we are creating a cloud-based data management solutions for small and mid-sized machine shops to help manage and organize all the different information and data a machine shop deals with. We are currently in the validation phase and are actively looking for beta testers to try this out and give us feedback. Nothing for sale yet, just want to see if we're on the right path.

Let me know if anyone here is interested in trying this out.
 
I would just do an excel workbook with one of the sheets being a data sheet with column A containing all of your die numbers (or part numbers) and the other columns each having the other variable data then have a master spreadsheet that will be the sheet you can make to look like your paper sheet.
Then all you need to do is enter the Die number or job number at the top of the sheet and you can have a vlookup formula for everything else...enter the job number and all of the other cells will instantly pop up all the other data from your data sheet using vlookup formulas.
Hope that makes sense...the vlookup formula in excel is awesome.
Example (Data Sheet) Row 1: Column A: job number Column B: Press Column C: Shut Height Column C: Material Column D: Feed...etc.
 
I use both Excel and Access. I use Excel for creating and storing setup sheets for all jobs in the shop. I have templates that I use for each machine. Stores info for tools, origins/tool settings etc. and details of job that help dial it in.
I use access for tracking orders and did start off with the Northwind sample database and built up from there. Each serves their own purpose and I wouldn't change it.
Your situation may be different. My advice is to start off with something simple. Then take that something and refine it into what you like.
 








 
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