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ing downtime. They include establishing baselines for tooling performance, identifying tooling failure modes, and specifying different tool steels and coatings. Tooling performance baselines How long does a tool last in a particular compression application? What is the overall service life of the tool? How frequently must a tool be changed out? Answering these and similar questions can help you establish the value of a tool and validate its worth. Next, you can cal- culate the true and complete cost of the tool by factoring in the labor, maintenance, and cleaning it requires and the cost of replacement. These calculations establish baselines that give you a realistic picture of overall costs when considering tooling purchases. When thinking about costs, it's common to think only about the price of the tool, and because com- pression tooling can be expensive, it's easy to shy away from higher-end versions. But does the expense really jus- tify paying a low price for a lower-quality tool that wears quickly or breaks more frequently? To find out which is a better value, you need to factor in the additional costs of lost production, labor, and maintenance. In the end, the "inexpensive" tool could cost greatly more than a high- quality, higher-priced tool that lasts longer and gives you fewer problems. Consider, for example, a tablet press that holds 31 sets of tools—62 punches and 31 dies. Replacing the entire set with higher-quality tools would be a large investment for some companies and that expense may not fit the budget. Plus, it's difficult to know whether buying better tools will really improve your operation. The best approach here might be a compromise: Buy just a few of the high-quality tools—those made from better steel and/or with a special coating—and integrate them with your standard tools so you can monitor and compare their performance. This technique can help you identify which tools perform best and establish baselines for future purchases so you can stick to the budget. Tool steels, coatings, and failure modes The combinations of tool steels and coatings are virtu- ally limitless, so it's important that you determine the right option, which is often a trial-and-error process. But it doesn't have to be a blind process. By identifying the failure mode of a tool, you can start to determine the best tool steel and/or coating for a particular application. Wear is the most common and expected source of tool failure, and premature wear often spurs people to seek a better tool steel. If you determine that a tool is wearing due to abrasion, for example, you should seek a tool steel that resists it and then track how much longer the new tool lasts and how much downtime it eliminates. If a tool fails due to fatigue, then yet another tool steel might be warranted. Again, track the performance of the new tool to quantify the improvement to your operation. If you can't determine why a tool has failed—it isn't always easy—ask a steel specialist to perform a more detailed analysis. Once the failure mode is identified, ask the specialist to suggest alternative steels that would per- form better in that application. A less expensive option for prolonging tool service life and reducing downtime is to add a coating to the tool. By adding a coating—even to a lower-quality tool—you can increase wear resistance. A coating can also reduce the coefficient of friction, and thus decrease or eliminate sticking and picking. The right coating might boost pro- duction efficiency and prolong the life of the tool. Other challenges Consumer demand determines what companies manu- facture, and the pharmaceutical and dietary supplement industries are no exceptions. Many people, especially the elderly, want smaller tablets that have the same effect. Parents want vitamins shaped like teddy bears and giraffes so their kids are more willing to take them. And most consumers want tablets that are sleek with crisp edges. The list of consumer desires goes on and on. The unfortunate reality for tablet manufacturers is that consumer demands can bring significant production chal- lenges. In developing smaller tablets, for example, phar- maceutical companies may need to decrease the use lev- els of some excipients. That could lead to a more abrasive formula or one that sticks or delaminates. Making special shapes, such as animals, requires expensive custom tools. Sleek, crisp tablet edges can lead to premature tool wear. These changes, in turn, can necessitate other changes downstream, adding to the costs. Before making plans for new tablets, consult the pro- duction guidelines in the American Pharmacists Association's Tableting Specification Manual. It establishes pro- 36 July 2017 Tablets & Capsules To satisfy consumer demand, custom tooling creates special shapes, such as animals, and sleek tablets with crisp edges. If high-end steel isn't in the budget, consider specifying hybrid tooling.