Today's episode is sponsored by Sandvik Coromant, a manufacturer of premium metal cutting tools providing high-end services and machining technology. Visit them at sandvik.coromant.com Aerospace and defense manufacturing. Machines and automation. Appetitive manufacturing. Smart manufacturing. The global manufacturing economy. Welcome to Advanced Manufacturing Now, the podcast for manufacturing professionals, powered by SME. From the design screen to the shop floor to final assembly, we drive the conversation about making manufacturing smarter by connecting people who are passionate about manufacturing. Hello and welcome to Advanced Manufacturing Now, the podcast for manufacturing professionals. I'm your host, Amy Bryson, contributing lead editor of Smart Manufacturing Magazine. Today we'll be talking about innovations in round tools and finding the right tool for the job. And my guest today is Corey Schwenke, product manager for Solid Round Tools at Sandvik Coromant. Corey has a fascinating background, including 11 years of experience with Sandvik Coromant, holding positions including design engineer, production supervisor, and tool designer. And before he found his footing in manufacturing, Corey was a horticulture major. So his journey from college to current day has certainly taken many twists and turns. And with all that, he's developed a problem-solving ability that helped to embrace challenges and explore new opportunities across manufacturing. Well, thank you for joining us, Corey, and welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. So before we jump in, can you give our audience a bit more background about you and the work you and your team are doing over at Sandvik Coromant? Yeah, sure. So like you said, I did major in horticulture, so I've had a different path to manufacturing than most, I would say. But yeah, I started in the green industry, but the red hair and fair skin doesn't lend well to the sunny outdoors a lot of the time. So I decided to make the jump, go back to school, and actually started with 3D modeling and CAD. So I found my way to pre-corp that Sandvik Coromant then purchased and acquired and moved into under their umbrella. So I was lead tool designer, like you said, production supervisor, and then I made the jump into R&D and product management. So yeah, it's been a winding road. Yeah, a little bit of chutes and ladders. So for our listeners, can you break down Sandvik Coromant's round tool offerings and just help the audience better understand the landscape of that group of tools? Sure. So when you come to Sandvik Coromant and you look at our round tool offer, you're going to see three different sections. You'll have your versatile offer, your optimized offer, and then your customized solutions. So when it comes to versatile, you're looking at more of your multi-material applications, your jack-of-all-trades tools, right? If you're running different types of materials and things of that nature, you're going to want one tool to be able to jump from job to job. Otherwise, you're going to go optimize. Say you have long runs of the same material, you need high productivity, fast cycle times, things of that nature. You'll go with our tools that are optimized for material-specific or operation-specific applications. And then there's the customized. So maybe you need a tool that falls outside of our standard offer. If it's a weird diameter, you need an extra long cutting link, something along those lines. We have our tailor-made offer, our tailor-made system where you can actually go on our website and you can modify our standard offer tools to fit your application. Or you can go strictly advanced engineered where you come to us with what you need. We make the tool for your application for your specific needs. Do you find that a lot of companies know what tool is right for their specific use cases? I mean, do they know when and why do you say versatile versus optimized versus customized? As far as our customers go? Yeah. I think they can be coached in it a bit better. Okay. I think sometimes you'll walk into an operation where maybe they're trying to make a versatile tool work in an application where it really needs to be an optimized tool, right? But a lot of the time you run into those situations and initial cost is going to be a main issue. For some customers or a main sticking point. They don't necessarily want to spend. They get that sticker shock sometimes with optimized tooling from us and competitors as well. So they're trying to make something work, but they're banging their head against the wall, right? So I imagine some people, I mean, I think that's human nature that people get, you know, in a rut in terms of sticking with tools that maybe have worked well for them. And, you know, you've been, you know, in the space for more than a decade. Do you see that some people, that they have light bulb moments when they realize that there are better tools and advancements in technology that can really help make not just their jobs, but the operations function much better? Sometimes ignorance can be bliss. In this situation, it really isn't. Because, like we said, banging their heads up against the wall. And sometimes they just simply don't know what people have to offer and what solutions that we can offer up. So, yeah, it's, you deal with customers a lot that, you know, I'm really trying to get this tool to work. Don't know what it is. It's got to be the tool. And those are some light bulb moments, too. And we can walk in and be like, just a simple question of what's your current concentricity in your machine? It's like, I don't know. You might want to take a look at that. There's a checklist. Well, that's good to know. I think, you know, we talk a lot about the evolution of manufacturing and smart technologies and things. And I think tools play a big part in that. And often we hear, you know, that people just don't know what, to your point, exists and what opportunities are out there. And that sticker shock piece and not thinking the long term, like the marathon, not the sprint, in terms of investments and how it can overall benefit the bottom line. I wonder if you have any examples of customers that you've helped kind of undertake that journey and help transform some of their day -to-day operations that has really improved their overall processes. Yes. We had one customer where they were actually using our drill. They were using one of our versatile drills and they were content with the productivity and the performance, whole quality. They were fine with all of it. But just having the opportunity to get in front of them and say, hey, here's this other drill. You're having these long runs, these same parts, same material. Put this in. It's plug and play. You don't have to change your cutting data. But I guarantee you, you're going to get much longer tool life. It's going to cut down on your cost. So just plugging that in, they were able to get three times the tool life just applying, you know, a drill that might initially be a little more expensive in that initial cost. But over the time, it just, it saved them so much money. Yeah, that's amazing. So what about some of your go-to tools? I'm the product manager. I might be the wrong person to ask that question. I have a lot. The RRCU, the first one that comes to mind is actually our KTAP is what we call it. But it's the CoreTAP T100KM. So it's specifically for ISO-K materials. But I have yet to see an application where we've either, you know, necessarily gone up against a competitor or just tried to plug it in to a customer's application where we haven't had a significant success. Our KTAPs are phenomenal. It is a go-to tool. If somebody's machining ISO-K and you need a hole tap, that hands down the best one on the market. I can honestly say that. Probably second. Probably second. I've had a big hand in kind of the initiation of CoreMill Dura with our inch offer in the North Americas. So that's kind of one of my babies. But our 6-flute Dura end mill, especially in ISO-S and titaniums or nickels. I mean, Dura is our versatile line of end mills. But you plug that thing into titanium or into nickel alloys, again, just going to be a significant success. Are there any products in your round tool assortment that you feel gets overlooked? I mean, kind of the hidden gems, so to speak? Again, back to the taps. Maybe not specifically the KTAPs, but our tapping offer overall. Again, we have versatile, we have optimized and customized and all the three different sections. But when it comes to our versatile offer, especially within tapping, so that'll be the CoreTAP XM's. We have three different grades within the entire offer, stock standards. It's an offer that doesn't get utilized enough. And sadly, I don't know if I should say this in public, but we still have people say, I didn't know Cormont had a tapping offer. And that hurts my heart. But it happens. Yeah, well, that's why you're talking about it right now. Exactly. Exactly. So they perform extremely well, and that's just our XM, right? So we have our optimized. We have material specific for ISO P and M. For N, we recently came out with some aluminum taps, and they have been, again, I don't know if I should say this, we should rent those tools because they just run forever. Okay, so knowing that Cormont releases new products, I think it's twice a year. Is there anything from Round Tools that our audience should be on the lookout for later this year? Yes. So we actually have a big release coming in October for CorePAC. So first off, we have our CoreDrill MM. So that's our material specific drill for ISO-M materials. So that's been a long time coming for us, to be perfectly honest. So we've needed an upgrade, and it's coming, and the testing has been rather good. On top of that, to piggyback off of our last release back in March, so in March we released our ballnose end mill specifically for ISO-S. So to go along with that, in this fall we have conical ballnose, and we have lollipop cutters, both specifically for ISO-S materials coming to help in our aerospace, and really anywhere that you're seeing ISO-S applications. Wow, you guys have been very busy. So where will you be? Are you going to be heading out to any shows, or do you have other things coming in the pipeline that our listeners should be paying attention to? Yeah, so we actually made the announcement that we are returning to IMTS this year. So come September we will be in IMTS up in Chicago, so come see us. Yeah, absolutely. So if someone could do one thing tomorrow to kind of up their tool game, Corey, what would you recommend to them? And that's a great question. I think you have to ask why. You walk up to your machine if you're having issues, and ask yourself why you're sticking with what you're sticking with. Don't be afraid to question your cutting data, your programs, your strategy on how you're making these tools. I kind of take a holistic view of it, you know, not just being a product manager, but look at the entire process. I'm not afraid to ask why we do some things. So that would be my one directive. And if you're having issues with specific tooling, don't be afraid to change them out and to try some of our round tools. Yeah, wonderful. Well, we've covered a lot of ground today, Corey. Is there anything else you think is important for our listeners to know? Yeah, I would say don't be afraid to work with us, to be perfectly honest. We have facilities. And one thing that I love to do is take customers' applications or their materials, and if possible, take them back to those facilities and test them. Let's get our hands on them. We don't have to make you shut down your production or, you know, slow down you making money. We can take that from you, do the work elsewhere, and then come back and prove it out. So that's one of the things that I do love. So again, if we can help out in any way possible, doing something along those lines and not disrupting your day-to-day, let us do our work and come back and prove to you that we can make you better. Well, that sounds like a win-win for sure. So hopefully our listeners will take you up on that. And if people want to learn more about, you know, everything we talked about today and check out some of the tools and offerings, where should they go? They should go to sandvick.cormont.com slash solidroundtools. I have that memorized. I think that's my job. Wonderful. Well, Corey, I want to thank you for taking time to speak with me today and sharing your valuable insights with our audience. And I'd also like to thank our listeners for tuning in. Make sure you stay up to date about what's happening in advanced and smart manufacturing and hear more podcasts by visiting us at advancedmanufacturing.org. Take care, everybody. Thank you.