Tool control for aviation maintenance
Every tool has one place. A gap is visible from across the hangar.
Custom shadow foam cut to the tools you already hold, complete kits, laser marking and serialisation, and the tool crib audit that proves it works. Quoted per layout, supplied from inside the EU.
Request a quote How the foam works
- 10 to 15 working days for custom foam, 2 to 5 working days for stocked tools
- No minimum order, on custom foam or on stocked tools.
- Published prices in EUR, and bulk pricing on every catalogue line
- EU supply, so no import duty and no customs clearance fee
Two tone insert / 13 of 13 present
Why tool control gets budget
The case is made with other people's numbers
These are the figures the industry quotes. None of them are ours, and each one is attributed, because an unsourced statistic on a supplier website is worth nothing to anyone signing a purchase order.
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$4bn
Estimated annual cost of foreign object damage to global aviation.
Boeing estimate, as cited by Shadow Foam. An industry wide figure, not a claim about any customer.
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78%
Faster toolbox inventory reported with numbered foam inlays.
Supplier published figure, Sonic Tools USA. Their measurement, on their own kit.
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80%
Reduction in misplaced tools reported over the same programme.
Supplier published figure, Sonic Tools USA.
We have not measured these outcomes on our own installations. When we hold a customer result with a number attached, it will appear here with the customer named and their permission given.
What we build
Four pieces of work, priced per job
Custom work is quoted rather than listed, because a drawer layout is priced from the tool list and anyone quoting it off a web form is guessing.
Custom Tool Control Foam
Two tone shadow foam cut to the tools you already hold, so an empty pocket is visible from across the hangar rather than at the end of a stocktake.
Read how it worksCustom Aircraft Tool Kits and Kitting
Complete aviation tool control kits, built to a task rather than to a piece count, and supplied shadowed and marked so they can be checked in a minute.
Read how it worksLaser Tool Marking and Serialisation
Permanent tool identification, serial numbers and 2D barcodes, etched rather than printed, so the marking outlasts the tool control programme that ordered it.
Read how it worksTool Crib Audit and Tool Control Programmes
A survey of what you actually hold, measured against what your own procedure says you hold, and a programme to close the gap between the two.
Read how it worksThe whole proposition, in one drawer
Before and after
Drag the handle. On the left, tools in a drawer. On the right, the same tools in foam, where a missing one is a coloured shape rather than a memory test.
Before
After
Who we supply
An MRO buyer and a defence programme buyer do not want the same page
So they get different ones.
Commercial MRO
Part-145 organisations, where tool control is a compliance requirement with a paper trail rather than a housekeeping preference.
What matters hereBusiness aviation
Small teams, high value airframes and an owner who notices downtime. Tool control here is about not losing an afternoon, and not losing a tool in a cabin.
What matters hereMilitary and defence
Where tool accountability is a written requirement, kits are named by role, and every tool leaving a flight line has to be accounted for before the aircraft moves.
What matters hereTraining schools
Student kits sized to the syllabus, and workshop tool control that teaches the habit rather than mentioning it in a lecture.
What matters hereHomebuilt and experimental
Kit builders and experimental owners, buying the right tool once rather than the wrong tool twice, without an import bill on top.
What matters hereFrom the catalogue
Tools with a price and a lead time on the page
Published prices, published lead times, and filters on the numbers you actually choose by. Add anything to an enquiry and send custom work and stock as one request.
Free, and not gated
The compliance guides nobody else has written
Every competitor in this market quotes the four billion dollar FOD figure and stops. These are the guides a quality manager actually searches for, published in full with no form in front of them.
EASA Part-145 Tool Control: A Practical Guide
What Part-145.A.40 actually requires of tools and test equipment, what a tooling control system consists of, and what an auditor...
Read the guideFOD Prevention Through Tool Control
What foreign object damage costs, why tools are the part of the problem you can actually design out, and an honest comparison of...
Read the guideAviation Tool Calibration: Records, Intervals and Traceability
ISO 10012, ISO/IEC 17025 and the ILAC MRA, what a calibration certificate has to say, how intervals are justified, and what...
Read the guideStraight answers
The four questions every buyer asks first
Do you have a minimum order?
No minimum order, on custom foam or on stocked tools. A single drawer insert is a job we will quote, and so is a fleet-wide tool control programme.
How long does a custom foam insert take?
Custom foam is 10 to 15 working days from approval of the layout. Stocked tools are 2 to 5 working days.
Will there be import duty?
Supplied from inside the EU, so there is no import duty and no customs clearance fee on delivery to an EU address.
Can you cut foam around tools we already own?
Yes. That is the normal case. Send the tool list, or the tools themselves, and the layout is drawn around what you actually hold rather than around a catalogue kit.
Notes
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