Tool Alliance Marks 50 Years of Excellence in Cutting Tool Manufacturing

L-R: Mark Wortsman, Technical Director, Tool Alliance; Dave Povich, owner & President, Tool Alliance; Patrick Schmid, NUMROTO Project Manager and Steven Schilling, General Manager, NUM Corporation.

California, US and Teufen, Switzerland – Tool Alliance, a US cutting tool manufacturer, celebrated 50 years of highly successful business recently. During this time, the company has steadily grown, earning an enviable reputation for the quality and durability of its solid carbide and indexable carbide cutting tools. Tool Alliance uses a variety of CNC grinding machines from various manufacturers but has chosen to standardize the machines' control systems on NUM’s Flexium CNC platform and NUMROTO software, primarily for performance and production efficiency.

Tool Alliance is one of the largest NUMROTO licensees in the US. Ultra-Tool, RoundTool Laboratories, Tungsten ToolWorks, Routco, and Mil-Tec are among the well-known brands represented by the company’s cutting tool products and services. All five brands are sold globally and benefit from shared research, design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and sales facilities. Dave Povich, Owner and President, Tool Alliance, asserted, “NUM is our CNC technology partner, which creates a win-win situation for both companies. We benefit from having a direct technical input to NUMROTO software development, while NUM gains valuable feedback on the design and production of the very latest cutting tools.”

The innovative Ultra-Tool Series 365 high performance end mills from Tool Alliance are a prime example. These solid carbide tools, designed specifically for the machining of exotic materials, feature a patented variable-helix geometry combined with a proprietary edge preparation/PVD coating combination that enables world-class dynamic milling of tool paths, including most slotting cut applications. The tools are produced on high-performance 5-axis CNC grinding machines using NUMROTO, with monitored tool run-out, real-time deviation compensation, and the latest diamond abrasive technology utilizing advanced wheel truing equipment.

Stating that collaborating with NUM has multiple advantages, Mark Wortsman, Technical Director, Tool Alliance, said, “The NUMROTO team is very supportive and always amenable to suggestions, which makes life a lot easier for us, as well as our customers. For example, we recently suggested adding categories for collets, and some new features for wheel probing and automatic 3D collision checking; these have all been implemented in the latest version of NUMROTO software. We consider the 3D-simulation capabilities of NUMROTO to be the most accurate in the tool grinding world; they help us to optimize tool programming by preventing any grinding errors that might otherwise be caused by imperfect wheel measurement or incorrect machine alignment.”

Also pointing out that NUM’s software aids in the simplification of shop floor management, Wortsman commented, “Over the years we have built an extensive library of tools that we have produced with NUMROTO. The NUMROTO team has done a superb job of incorporating the library in a centralised industry-standard SQL database which can be accessed by any of our machines or programming stations. The database can store tens of thousands of tool programs which can be accessed by several hundred users at the same time if needed.”

Tool Alliance makes extensive use of CNC grinding machines at its manufacturing facilities.

Tool Alliance has chosen to standardize the control systems of all its CNC grinding machines on NUM’s Flexium CNC platform and NUMROTO software.

He further added, “It is much easier to backup a single centralized database file instead of having to backup files from the computers on each machine – we perform automated backups several times a day just to ensure productivity continuity in the event of a machine breakdown. Software updates are also handled very efficiently. As soon as a key NUMROTO update is available, we can bring all our machines, regardless of make or model, up to the same software revision level.”

Many of Tool Alliance’s CNC grinding machines have automatic loading systems to allow for overnight production—in fact, some can run for two days in a row without interruption or the need for manual compensation. The company relies on the NUMROTO software’s ‘measurement in process’ feature to keep tool dimensions within tolerance. This feature automatically measures tools after grinding and applies appropriate compensation.

A number of Tool Alliance projects have warranted the installation of early generation CNC machines and then retrofitting them with NUM’s most recent motors, drives, and CNC systems. According to Steven Schilling, General Manager, NUM Corporation, “Again, we were able to help. Our CNC team in Chicago provided local support, and we were able to improve the performance of the machines’ spindles and axes. It has been, and continues to be, a pleasure to be a partner to the success of Tool Alliance.”

From May 17-20, 2022, NUM will be exhibiting at the GrindingHub trade show in Stuttgart, Germany.

Image Source: NUM AG