We have too many tooling companies working in our shop. We are a mid sized production shop that runs many of the same jobs over and over again. Our main problem is lack of leadership. It seems there are no rules as to who can come walking in our shop and sell one of our programmers or setup men or supervisors a tool. It's a real mess. I guess what I would like to know is how your shop handles tooling companies competition. Alot of our problem is everyone has their favorite sales man who took them out to lunch or got them this or that free. I'm the new CAM programmer now and this is getting to be a pain in the butt. It's wasting time when each sales man wants to show how their tool can beat the other guys. Another thing about the lunch and free bees, even though I've been guilty of going to lunch with our sandvic guy, I'm starting to think this kind of stuff is not good for our shop. I need to try and change things. </RANT>

I can tell you how GM does it.
1) No lunch/dinner/golfing with vendors allowed.
2) No Freebies allowed. Not even free coffee cups. In some plants not even a calender or pen.
3) Organize your tool testing. Standard forms for testing. Pay for test tools on performance. Track you tooling costs. The old "throw this tool on and try it" is a waste of time and resources.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Its hard to have too much help and technical assistance. It's easy to have too much socializing.
Limit the number of people who can authorize the testing/purchasing of tools.
Bob

What we have at our shop witch is smaller is the vendors do give us freebies and what not but all of our purchesing goes threw one person. And he will ask you to test the new tool, or product and ask for results and ask what you think of it. And any questions go to the vendor.

Limit who has the say in purchasing. As for the free goodies (hats screwdrivers etc, under about $20) don't worry about that too much. If guys are starting to go on vacations or getting large gifts, that is a problem.

Have a chat with the salesman and say what the limit is, and if they want to give out larger gifts (jackets, large gift certificates...) hold on to them and do a draw for them at a company outing (golf, bbq...). This way it helps keep everybody objective.

Limit who has the say in purchasing. As for the free goodies (hats screwdrivers etc, under about $20) don't worry about that too much. If guys are starting to go on vacations or getting large gifts, that is a problem.

Have a chat with the salesman and say what the limit is, and if they want to give out larger gifts (jackets, large gift certificates...) hold on to them and do a draw for them at a company outing (golf, bbq...). This way it helps keep everybody objective.

very good way to do it!!

Right now I'm in a small prototype shop and we don't buy enough stuff to get the kind of attention your getting, but in the past I've been in your situation.
Then the only people I met with where the ones I called, no one else got past the front desk. They could drop off catalogs and cards but unless I called them, NO DICE. Also discourage people from walking in the back door. Infact I made it a rule that no one could just walk into the shop without an invite. I mean that's just basic saftey rules right? Also I always pick a sales rep. from one of the better tooling stores in the area and give him as much of the stuff as possible. Then when I get jammed up and need something fast that guy will do whatever it takes to get me what I need. Like drive to where it is pick it up and bring it to me. And I never take anything but scratch pads and pens, everything else is turned down with a smile!