Manufacturing
Keeping the tooling somebody else paid for
The customer paid for the mould and it sits in your plant. While orders keep coming nobody asks; the day they stop, they do.
Making your customer's product required specific tooling —a last, a mould, a die, a cutter— that they paid for and that sits here, in your plant, because that is where it is used. **It is theirs and you hold it**, and that combination runs without friction for years, as long as orders keep coming. The question surfaces exactly when they stop.
The same object from both seats
| What is at stake | To the customer | To you |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An asset they paid for | A production tool |
| Where it should be | Wherever they say | Where it is used |
| Who maintains it | Presumably you | Presumably it is charged for |
| **When it gets discussed** | **When they want to move it** | **When they want to move it** |
Important
**Everything not agreed when the tooling was made gets negotiated the day the customer wants to take it away, which is the worst possible day to negotiate.** That day they are changing supplier —or considering it—, you are losing a customer, and on top of that you must agree who pays accumulated maintenance, what condition it is handed over in and what happens to modifications made along the way. None of those conversations goes well in that context.
What is worth holding for each tool
- 1
Who owns it and what exactly was paid for
Tooling, design and modifications can have different owners.
- 2
Where it is and in what condition
With periodic checks: wear gives no warning until a part comes out wrong.
- 3
What maintenance it has had and who paid
It is half the argument on collection day.
- 4
And what happens if the customer claims it
Notice, condition and who bears transport. Agreed at the start.
Watch out
The case nobody plans for is **the tooling of a customer who stopped ordering and said nothing**. It takes up space, generates no revenue, degrades, and nobody knows whether an order will ever come back. It cannot be scrapped because it is not yours; phoning to ask sounds like closing a commercial door. Over the years several of these accumulate, and deciding what to do with them is far easier if a period of inactivity and its consequence were agreed at the outset.
Worth knowing
Who owns the tooling, what custody and preservation duties holding it entails, how it is treated for insurance and what may be done with what nobody claims **is determined by the contract and the applicable rules, and settled by your adviser**. Here we cover the organisational part: what to record about each tool so that collection day is a formality.
›Can I refuse to hand over tooling?
The contract decides, which is why the contract should say.
›Who pays for maintenance?
Whatever was agreed. If nothing was, it gets argued at the worst moment.
›What if the customer disappears?
It is the commonest case and the least planned for. Agree an inactivity period.
A real case
The situation
The customer claims their tooling and it must be located and assessed.
What you do
- Records where each tool is and in what condition
What you get
The handover is prepared without searching the plant.
The situation
There is a dispute over who paid for a mould's maintenance.
What you do
- Keeps the intervention history per tool
What you get
The dispute closes on the record.
The situation
There is tooling belonging to customers who no longer order.
What you do
- Flags what has gone too long without use
What you get
The decision is taken before they pile up.
The situation
Nobody knows what modifications were made to a mould.
What you do
- Stores each change with its date and author
What you get
The current state is explicable.
The situation
A tool degrades and it is discovered through a bad part.
What you do
- Warns about periodic checks for each tool
What you get
Wear is caught before the defect.
The situation
What was agreed about the tooling sits in an old email.
What you do
- Files the agreement with the customer's record
What you get
What was agreed is found when it is needed.
This article answers
- who owns the mould the customer paid for
- customer moving tooling to another supplier
- custody of moulds and dies
- what to document about customer tooling