The life time of forging dies is essential for economic production. The forging conditions and the characteristic tool damage vary from part to part, which makes a life time prediction very difficult. By means of three case studies, it is shown that the knowledge of the dominant damage mechanism is the key to finding out proper counter-measures or repair technologies. Best practice processing and repair technologies are discussed in this paper. Common tool materials are listed and assigned to their proper usage. Plasma-nitriding without white layer is proposed to be a good economic and technical compromise, when compared to other surface technologies. Finally, the potential of automatic tooling for die repair is pointed out.