A Message From The CEO; Kaci King
If you are paying attention to the global supply chain, you know that raw material volatility is becoming a massive strategic risk. With the heavy global concentration of tungsten and raw carbide, price increases and supply shortages are no longer just possibilities, they are realities we have to navigate. In a period of economic uncertainty, how manufacturers choose to protect their production lines will dictate who scales and who stalls.
My background is in accounting and auditing, which means I don’t look at a drill as just a line-item expense; I look at the Total Cost of Ownership. For decades, the industry standard has been to buy cheap carbide tools, burn through them every 20,000 to 25,000 holes, and constantly send them out for regrinds. But when carbide prices spike and shipping delays hit, a shop that consumes hundreds of drills a month is holding a massive financial and operational liability.
This is why we tell our customers that longer tool life is a supply chain strategy, not just a performance metric. By replacing a cycle of constant consumable ordering with a single custom tool that runs uninterrupted for months, businesses eliminate unpredictable production bottlenecks, reduce their dependency on fragile global logistics, and turn tool longevity into a quantifiable, protective supply chain safeguard.
If you want to protect your business while growing, you have to stop consuming so many consumables. That was the driving force behind our EDGEX4® technology. By engineering a proprietary process to braze solid polycrystalline diamond (PCD) to a carbide shank, we created a drill that generates 800,000 to 1,000,000 holes in diecast aluminum without needing a single regrind or re-tipping.
When one tool replaces forty, you effectively insulate your production line from raw material price hikes and inventory shortages. To guarantee this level of precision and speed, we recently invested $1 million into our own growth, adding advanced WALTER and STUDER grinding and erosion machines with robotic automation. This ensures our custom tool delivery times stay at 4 to 6 weeks, drastically faster than the industry average.
Economic uncertainty is inevitable, but production bottlenecks are a choice. By shifting your mindset from the "lowest upfront price" to the "lowest cost per hole," you can delete downtime from your spreadsheet, lower your inventory carrying costs, and secure your growth for the future.
If you would like to have a strategic conversation about your bottom line, I am here.
Kaci
P.S. While traditional tooling creates a cycle of constant consumption and discarded carbide, our lifecycle support, through expert regrinding and retipping, ensures we are refurbishing tools rather than throwing them away. HOWEVER, when there is scrap to throw away, West Ohio Tool Co.'s recycling program pays 30% more than the competition.