Tool Alliance Celebrates 50 Years of Business

U.S. cutting tool manufacturer Tool Alliance celebrates 50 years of business this year. Over the past five decades, the company says it has seen steady growth and, in the process, built a reputation for the quality and durability of its solid carbide and indexable carbide cutting tools.

Founded in 1972 and still privately held, Tool Alliance operates a number of company-owned factories — its principal manufacturing facilities are located in Huntington Beach, California, and Fort Myers, Florida. The company’s cutting tool products and services include such names as Ultra-Tool, RoundTool Laboratories, Tungsten ToolWorks, Routco and Mil-Tec. All five brands are sold worldwide and supported by shared research, design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing and sales facilities.

Tool Alliance makes use of CNC grinding machines from various manufacturers, but has chosen to standardize the machines’ control systems on NUM’s Flexium CNC platform and Numroto software.

The owner and president of Tool Alliance, Dave Povich, served previously as president of the United States Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and has worked for the company since 1987. Povich says, “NUM is our CNC technology partner, which creates a win-win situation for both companies. We benefit from having a direct technical input to Numroto software development, while NUM gains valuable feedback on the design and production of the very latest cutting tools.”

A number of projects undertaken by Tool Alliance have warranted installing early generation CNC machines and then retrofitting them with NUM’s latest motors, drives and CNC systems. According to Steven Schilling, general manager of NUM Corporation, “Our CNC team in Chicago provided local support, and we were able to improve the performance of the machines’ spindles and axes. It has been, and continues to be, a pleasure to be a partner to the success of Tool Alliance.”