Die change-out timing: when to push, when to pull

A working die is always asking one question: keep running, or pull now. The answer lives in scrap-rate trend, wear-progression rate, and the asymmetry between a planned change-out and a catastrophic in-press failure.

6 min readLesson 11 of 13

Knowledge check

A die at 70K hits has held a baseline scrap rate of 0.4-0.6% for the last 30K hits. Over the last 5K hits the scrap rate has climbed to 3.1%, and the inspection at the last shift change found a single 2 mm crack propagating out of the heat-check network. The die is still producing parts in tolerance on average. Production wants two more shifts before the planned die change. Walk the decision.