I was thinking about designing and printing something like this:
To store and sort all the sizes.
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Something like that that would be great - especially with a sizing guide to facilitate re-merchandising of loose bits.
But that’s independent of keeping some >12 months’ worth of tooling purchases secure since the ideal visible stock level for tooling is maximum number of simultaneous users plus one.
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Agree with Erik on a sizing guide. If printing this at DMS, there could be a test hole by each pocket. Love the color code as well, but guessing that’s asking for the moon!
So this order would be packaged in “cases” each case would be 218 bits. In my mind we would put out a partial case and see how bits get used filling in as needed. We should also have one “spares” case open that we pull bits from if we run out of specific sizes before the primary case as whole is depleted.
The remaining supply of drill bits could be stored someplace like the server room or some other locked room.
I was thinking of using drill bushing as they will not wear out from repeated use. Drill bushings are also extremely accurate thus preventing putting drill bits in the wrong spots.
They come in both inch and metric sizes.
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We could ask the factory to add the paint for us but it would definitely add cost and probably raise the MOQ.
We could also add the paint ourselves but that would add a lot of volunteer effort.
Yep, figured it was not likely 
Works for me. Not subject to the dimensional creep of plastics either.
I also got a quote back from a US manufacturer of drill bits. They quoted ~$420 for the case of 218 drill bits or ~$1.93 per drill bit.
These are definitely higher quality drill bits than the chinese drill bit quote as these are M7 HSS (better than M2 HSS) and they have some secret sauce with the drill bit geometry.
That said I don’t think it makes sense to spend that kind of money for drill bits.
Another idea for mitigating shrinkage/cost recovery is to have an iPad kiosk for people to donate money for drill bits that they break/ruin.