Tool life monitoring
Which tool is about to cost you a part?
Every control already counts how long a tool has been cutting. ThingConnect reads those same counters — the tool running right now, and each tool's life used against its target — so a tool nearing its limit shows up before it takes a part with it, not after.
Live active tool wear over the shift worst-first ranking
Every tracked tool, every machine, ranked worst first.
| Machine | Tool | Life used | Ideal life | Actual life | Remaining | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VMC-01 | T04live | 150 min | 168 min | −18 min | 112% · over | |
| Lathe-02 | T11live | 200 min | 188 min | 12 min | 94% · near | |
| HMC-03 | T02live | 180 min | 146 min | 34 min | 81% · near | |
| VMC-01 | T07 | 220 min | 139 min | 81 min | 63% · ok | |
| Mill-05 | T15live | 130 min | 52 min | 78 min | 40% · ok |
The problem
Tool wear that nobody sees until it breaks something
- A tool goes past its life mid-cut and takes the part with it — sometimes the fixture too.
- 'Tool life remaining' means something different to every operator, so changes happen too early (wasted inserts) or too late (scrap).
- Nobody can say which tools are wearing fastest without walking every machine and reading the offset screen by hand.
- A near-miss on a Friday afternoon shift isn't in anyone's report by Monday.
How it works
Read from the control, mapped per machine
Read from the control, not a spreadsheet
Each tool's target life and life used so far come from the same tool-life counters your post-processor already keeps — ThingConnect reads them alongside everything else it already polls, no separate tool-tracking system to keep in sync.
The active tool, live
The tool currently in the spindle already shows up in the live machine view in real time — no walking the floor to see what's running before you can even ask about wear.
Mapped per machine, not guessed at
Every shop programs tool life a little differently, so this is mapped machine by machine during the site survey — the same way parts-count tracking is — never a generic estimate applied blind across a mixed fleet.
What the report shows
From one live chip to a ranked fleet
The same two real fields — the tool in the spindle right now, and each tool’s life used against its target — read one way live, and rolled up another way in the ranking above.
The tool in the spindle, right now
Every machine’s live view already shows which tool is cutting — the same number as the “Tool” chip you’d check before walking the floor to ask what’s running. It’s read straight from the controller on every poll, machine by machine, so tool life monitoring starts from what’s actually cutting, not a guess or a note from the last time someone looked.
VMC-01 · Milling
T04active now
Lathe-02 · Turning
T11active now
HMC-03 · Milling
T02active now
Mill-05 · Milling
T15active now
Catch a tool fighting the cut, not just aging on paper
Spindle load is pulled straight from the control on every poll, so when a tool starts fighting the cut — pushing harder to hold the same feed — it shows up immediately as a real spike over the normal ceiling. That’s a live warning sign of tool wear, not just a life-used percentage slowly climbing toward 100 with no context for how hard the tool is actually working.
1 over· 2 near · 2 ok, right now
↑ See every tracked tool in the full ranking above% of rated spindle load, one cutting cycle after another — VMC-01 / T04, the fleet's tool furthest past its limit.
T04 · Path 1 · S1
↑ 40% overload
- VMC-01 · T04 · spindle load
- 82% · normal ceiling
- Flagged overload
Tool wear you can read in a glance, not calculate
The same life-used percentage from the ranking above shows as a simple dial, with this fleet’s own ok/near/over zones marked on it — so a tool that’s run past its target is obvious on sight, no mental math against 100 required before you decide it’s time for a change.
VMC-01 · T04
168 of ~150 min · over target
VMC-01 · T07
139 of ~220 min · well within life
- 0-77% · ok
- 77-100% · near
- 100%+ · over
Questions
Before you book a demo
No — it's mapped per machine during the site survey, because each post-processor's tool-life macro numbering is different, and some older programs don't track it in the control at all. We confirm machine by machine what's actually readable before committing to it.
It reads the same custom macro variables your post-processor already uses for tool life, not a separate proprietary tool-management module — so it works with programs as they're already written, without changing your post-processor.
Each tool's target life, life used so far, and life remaining, per machine — plus which tool is running right now, live. Whether a tool is over its limit is a straight comparison of life used against target, nothing modeled or predicted.
This page is about measured usage: real per-tool life read straight from the control, tool by tool, machine by machine — a straight comparison of life used against target, nothing modeled. AI-assisted prediction on top of that signal is covered on the predictive maintenance page.
Get started
See it on machines like yours
A 30-minute demo, then a pilot on your own floor if it fits.