high quality custom iron casting foundry manufacturer

#High quality custom iron casting foundry manufacturer how to

The main value added requirements that I have are for machining, assembly and paint capabilities. And it is not only major investments that are important to look out for, but upgrades of individual components such as new core making machines and sand systems as well. Recent investments are very relevant and it says a lot more than 100 years of experience that a company is still investing in its foundries – especially in the current economic environment. The financial stability of a foundry is also important but age itself doesn't say all that much as there were a lot of long established businesses that went under in the last five years.

But ultimately quality and consistency is more important and is vital for a long term commercial relationship. It can set foundries apart from those that have been using the same technology for the last ten years. Modern high-speed moulding machinery offers an advantage here – look for Disamatics or similar technology.Īs castings get more complex, so technology becomes more of a factor. Lean companies should not want to wait 16 weeks for a part.

At the height of the economic crisis, average lead times were 4-6 weeks, now they are back to 12-16 weeks and reducing this is very interesting. The number of moulds per hour indicates the ability to deliver your requirements fast.īasically anything that can reduce lead times is attractive to me. Size and weight ranges may of course be critical to requirements but line speed is also important. Moulding capability is an important factor that says a lot about a foundry. It is always worth speaking to people from the quality group to ascertain that quality is sufficiently high.Īssessing capabilities is very important and is an immediate way to differentiate between foundries. The next step is to ask the foundry questions about the level of QC, how they made their online samples, if they use first article inspection, if they use a Coordinate Measuring Machine, the frequency of checks they carry out, and what they do when they encounter an issue. Of course it is very hard to judge a foundry's reputation wholly online and one of the best ways to check is to contact its other clients, but this information is not always easy to find. This can tell a lot about how seriously a foundry takes quality - for example look for useful information about how many QC people there are on the foundry floor and what inspection instruments they own. The next best place to go is the Quality Control (QC) area on a foundry website. To start trying to judge the quality of a foundry, I look at the types of samples pictured on websites and the level of complexity these images indicate. It’s one thing to have the lowest per-piece price, but if castings cannot make it through to the finish in a good state, it can be costly. Once machining time and labour have been put into a part, and it falls out, that cannot be recaptured. This plays into the overall cost of dealing with a supplier. One critical measurement that customers are concerned about is sometimes termed as fallout’ - the measurement of the rate at which castings make it through the various machining cells on the shop floor and then need to be scrapped for defects such as shrink and sand inclusions. Price is important, but at the end of the day you can end up having higher costs in rework if quality is not right. Quality is absolutely the most important thing I am looking for in choosing a supplier. Identifying them can be hard – first I start with Google but I also use Thomas net and similar sites, as they offer more depth of information and better filters, for example by processes and materials. In my job I am always looking for new foundries that can supply high quality castings.

#High quality custom iron casting foundry manufacturer how to

He regularly sources castings in Europe, Asia and the Americas, and in this article offers his advice on how to identify the best suppliers. The company is known for the high quality custom castings that it supplies and also as the world's leading producer of mechanical pipe joining systems, putting him in a unique position to offer advice about this very critical selection.Īs well as working for a major producer with foundries in China, Poland, Mexico and the USA, Chris also purchases castings that are outside the scope of service of the foundries he represents. Choosing the right foundry to supply castings is one of the most difficult decisions in the manufacturing process, says Chris Thomas purchasing manager at Victaulic.