Implementation of Metal Casting Best Practices - EERE - U.S. ...

also enables foundries to understand where areas of waste exist in their operation. Steel Foundry-
1 has developed a process to track its castings from the shakeout operation through to product
shipping. This system was under development during the assessment and was expected to come
online a few months after the site visit.
The tracking system will enable the foundry to gather data on individual serialized parts so it can
determine areas that need improvement. Prior to this system, the foundry’s employees tracked
this manually on a very small sample size, but the data were not adequate to allow tracking the
costs associated with certain defects or tracking the savings achieved by reducing a specific
defect in a casting. The new automated tracking system will provide the foundry with a much
clearer understanding of its costs and, therefore, will constitute a far better tool for problem
identification/correction and cost reduction.
The tracking system also will help measure improvements that derive from implementing new
technologies. For example, all castings with “burn-in” and “burn-on” require extra processing
steps for removal of contaminants. Burn-in is when the surface of the casting has sand adhering
to it that cannot be removed other than by grinding. Burn-on is when large pieces of sand/metal
are attached to the casting by metal ligaments, which can be removed by breaking, leaving a
relatively clean cast surface. This extra processing step costs the facility considerable time and
money. Some of the burn-in and burn-on can be chipped off, while other areas must be flamewashed
or ground. Steel Foundry-1 has incorporated the Metal Casting R&D work at University
of Missouri-Rolla to maintain the integrity of the coatings used in the sand and thereby reducing
the amount of burn-in and burn-on. The foundry had realized an improvement by incorporating
this work but had not quantified the effect such improvement had on its bottom line. With the
help of the new tracking system, the foundry will be able to measure its success.
Process Flow Improvement
Many foundries suffer from poor facility design and large work-in-process inventories. The
problem especially occurs in the casting finishing areas, which include blast cleaning, riser
removal, grinding, welding, and heat treatment. The problem derives in part from the laborintensive
nature of the finishing process. Typically, finishing accounts for 50% of the cost of
producing steel castings. Any decrease in this cost can improve a steel foundry’s bottom line and
provide it with a competitive advantage when compared to other steel foundries.
Steel Foundry-1 participated in two Metal Casting R&D projects conducted by the Iowa State
University (ISU): Re-Engineering Casting Production Systems and Reduction in Energy
Consumption and Variability in Steel Castings. These two projects addressed solutions and
improvements in the areas of scheduling, inspection and re-work practices, plant layout, and
material handling. Because of these studies and Steel Foundry-1’s participation in them, the
foundry has begun to work on redesigning the process flow in its cleaning room. It has relocated
the blast at the end of its newest continuous heat treat furnace to eliminate the need for a fork lift
to move castings from the continuous heat furnace to the blast, thus saving the facility fuel and
labor costs.
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