FOR TOOL ROOMS
A tool room sells hours. Every press tool, mould or fixture is a one-off, and its price depends on how well someone judged the CNC, wire cut, EDM, grinding and fitting time before a single block was cut. Kojo puts your senior toolmaker's way of estimating into the software, so every quote is built the same way and every job can be checked against it.
HOW THE WORK IS PRICED
In a tool room the price is mostly hours, not material. Die steel for punches and inserts (D2, H13, EN31), plates for the bolster or mould base, standard parts like guide pillars, bushes and ejector pins, a hot runner if the mould needs one, and outside heat treatment are all real costs. But the bulk of the price is machine and bench time: CNC milling of the cavity, core or die block, wire cut on punches and die inserts, spark erosion on ribs and deep pockets, surface and profile grinding, then fitting, try-out and corrections.
Most toolmakers estimate element by element. The tool is broken into die block, punches, stripper, inserts, cavity, core, slides and electrodes, and hours are put against each process and multiplied by the machine or labour rate. The risk sits after the tool is made: the number of trials, corrections after sample inspection, and drawing changes the customer calls small. Good tool rooms state the trials included and price changes separately. Payment usually comes in stages: an advance with the order, a payment when samples are approved, and a balance on dispatch or once the tool runs at the customer's press or moulding machine.
THE HEADACHES
The owner or senior toolmaker estimates the hours. When he is busy on the floor, enquiries wait, and two people quoting the same die arrive at very different numbers.
EDM and fitting hours creep up job after job, and the overrun is found only when the tool is in try-out and the price was fixed months ago.
Extra trials and customer changes get done as goodwill because nobody wrote down what the original quote covered.
The balance sits on tool approval at the customer's end and can stretch for months, while the tool is already making parts for them.
THE WORKFLOW
The customer sends a part drawing or 3D model with annual volume. You decide the tool type (progressive, compound or single-stage, or the number of cavities for a mould) and sketch a strip layout or mould layout.
Break the tool into elements and put hours against each process, then add die steel, mould base or bolster, standard parts and heat treatment.
Send a quote that states scope, trials included and delivery weeks. Follow up and revise as the buyer compares you with two or three other tool rooms.
After the order and advance, get the tool design approved, then the job moves across CNC, wire cut, EDM, grinding and the fitting bench.
Run trials, inspect samples, correct and re-trial until the customer approves the parts.
Dispatch the tool with approved samples, then collect the stage and final payments.
WHERE KOJO FITS
COMMERCIAL
LIVECaptures how your senior toolmaker estimates the machining: cycle times per operation, machine hour rates for CNC milling and grinding, and setup allowances. Every enquiry is estimated the same way, whoever prepares it.
Explore module →COMMERCIAL
LIVEPick the customer and part, and Kojo fills in die steel at today's price, machining, setup, overhead and margin. Wire cut, EDM, fitting and try-out are built from your own rates and costing rules, set up during onboarding, and the quote goes out as a clean PDF.
Explore module →COMMERCIAL
ROLLING OUTTool enquiries usually go to several tool rooms at once. Every quote you send gets an automatic follow-up schedule by email and WhatsApp, so you stay in the conversation while you are busy on the floor.
Explore module →OPERATIONS
ROLLING OUTDrag tool jobs onto your CNC, wire cut and EDM machines on a visual plan. When two tools need the same wire cut machine in the same week, you see the clash before it delays a delivery.
Explore module →OPERATIONS
ROLLING OUTOperators log each shift's production, rejects, downtime and material on a tablet with big buttons. It works offline and syncs, so the record builds up while the tool is still on the machines.
Explore module →COMMERCIAL
ROLLING OUTCustomers get reminders before and after each due date on WhatsApp, email and SMS. The ageing view shows which finished tools still have balances outstanding, and for how long.
Explore module →STARTER TO ENTERPRISE
Start with quoting, add production, inventory and payments, then scale across plants with integrations and a dedicated support team.
STARTER
Start with quoting. Your machine hour rates, process rates, margins and quote format are set up so element-wise quotes go out the same way every time.
GROWTH
Add shop-floor logging and payment reminders as the order book grows, so you can see what each shift produced and which stage payments are still unpaid.
ENTERPRISE
For groups running more than one tool room, or a tool room alongside a press shop or moulding plant: multi-site roll-up reporting, an open API to your accounting or ERP system, a dedicated support team and an uptime SLA.
NUMBERS TO WATCH
ACTUAL HOURS AGAINST QUOTED HOURS, PER TOOL
The plainest test of whether your estimating is right, best checked process by process, especially EDM and fitting.TRIALS PER TOOL BEFORE APPROVAL
Every extra trial is unpaid press or moulding time, more fitting hours and a later final payment.WIRE CUT AND EDM UTILISATION
These machines are often the bottleneck in a tool room, and their load decides your delivery dates.BALANCES OUTSTANDING AFTER TOOL APPROVAL
Final payments on approved tools are easy to forget and quietly tie up a large part of your working capital.QUESTIONS
Yes, from your own rates and costing rules, set up during onboarding. Machining is estimated from your cycle times and machine hour rates, and wire cut, EDM, fitting and try-out are added the way you already price them, so the quote reads the way you think about the tool.
The tool is a one-off, but the way you estimate it is not: hours per element, rates per machine, allowances for setup. Kojo applies that logic the same way on every enquiry, so a junior can prepare the quote and the senior only needs to review it.
Quoting goes live in about three weeks. Kiviro configures your machines, rates, margins and quote template, brings in your existing Excel data and trains the team. It starts with a free 30-minute visit if you are in India, or a remote demo.
Book a free 30-minute visit. We'll run one of your real jobs through Kojo on the spot. Outside India? We'll do it on a video call.
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