Cutting dies: when to reuse the one you have.
A new die costs money, arrives days later and ends up on a rack with the others. In the archive Cartis was born from, 48 sizes out of 115 already existed under another code. The problem was not the expense: it was not knowing.
Why they get ordered twice
Because the register is in one person's head, or in a spreadsheet nobody updates. You search by code, not by size; the code tells you nothing; you play safe and order another one.
What to check before ordering
- The internal dimensions of the piece, with the tolerance you accept.
- The box style and the component: a lid is not a base, even with the same dimensions.
- The board thickness: it changes the lip and therefore the die.
- Where it is: available, on its way, on loan, to be checked.
Keeping tooling in order
For each code: availability, location, expected arrival and notes. Codes imported from old lists stay ‘To be checked’ until someone has seen them on the rack. In production, the timer for an operation will not start if the die is recorded as on its way, ordered or unavailable: better to stop beforehand than with the machine running.
In the quote
A matching size in the register does not zero the tooling charge by itself: the cost stays on the safe side until you decide. ‘Already written off’ and ‘invoiced separately’ are explicit choices on the job, not automatic ones. And you always check the drawing and every component of the set.
Search by size, not by code. In Cartis the search (Ctrl+K) finds dies even if you type ‘90x90’. If you find it, check board and component; if you don't, order it and register it straight away, with its location.
The guides are written by the box maker that built Cartis. If something in your practice is different, write to us: we will correct them.
Your register, live.
In the demo we import your die list and search by size, to see how many are duplicates.