Bühler Services Modular,

Bühler Services Modular, individual, flexible. Economical production requires optimum productivity, quality, and uptime. A stable manufacturing process and swift recovery from production interruptions are essential ingredients of your success. Bühler offers services so you can maintain your competitive edge. Whether you need spare parts, machine inspections, or a customized service package, Bühler has the right solution for you. Bühler AG, Die Casting, CH-9240 Uzwil, Switzerland T +41 71 955 12 12, F +41 71 955 25 88 die-casting@buhlergroup.com, www.buhlergroup.com/die-casting Innovations for a better world.

EDITORIAL K Germany’s foundry sector – a family-oriented branch of industry! Albert Handtmann’s foundry in Biberach in southern Germany is the country’s largest family-owned light-metal foundry. In addition to Biberach, Handtmann Holding operates other foundries in Annaberg in Saxony, Košice in Slovakia, and Tianjin in China. This family-run global player – characterized by hard work, productivity, innovations, and, as in this case, expansions – is our figurehead for the German foundry industry in this issue. The company is embodied by the 88- year-old Albert Handtmann, who took over management in 1945 but has now passed it on to his son. Read our company portrait from P. 36. Innovations in material development and plant technology make up a large proportion of our summer issue. For material development we turn our attention to trimal-37, an alloy of aluminum, silicon and manganese, from which cast nodes that are weight-optimized but nevertheless extremely stable are produced for vehicle bodies. We present other interesting examples of applications for the material in our article from P. 8. Our author Herbert Smetan describes a sophisticated casting system: dynamic tilt casting on low-pressure casting machines. It is used for casting highly stressed cylinder heads. The casting system enables turbulence-free mold filling with absolutely clean and oxide-free metal. Read more from P. 23. The appearance of CASTING in late June 2016 signals the opening of the international Automatica trade fair in Munich (21 - 24 June). In addition to Industry 4.0 (the trendy topic of our time), involving the intermeshing of industrial production with state-of-the-art information and communication technology, the fair will also focus on robotics and other industrial automation solutions. European foundries do not lag behind here: KUKA robots clean casting molds at the BMW light-metal foundry in Landshut. They are ‘taught’ their tasks by foundry employees (from P. 34). Magma 5 simulation software permits the stable casting of oversized frame components at the Swiss foundry DGS Druckguss (from P. 28). Have a good read! Robert Piterek, e-mail: robert.piterek@bdguss.de Casting Plant & Technology 2/2016 3