CPT International 03/2016

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K COMPANY Finished transmission housings: KSM Castings achieves maximum value creation with comprehensive post-processing sure sand casting with magnesium. About ten years ago, the then ThyssenKrupp Fahrzeugguss GmbH began die casting magnesium on a small machine. “These were magnesium steering parts for ThyssenKrupp Presta, and we were able to build up a lot of internal expertise and gain qualified personnel who were familiar with, among other things, the topics of magnesium melts and protective gas,” Dr. Greven remembers. The production process was further optimized in subsequent years. During this time, KSM Castings was first taken over by private equity company Cognetas and finally, in 2011, by Chinese investor CITIC Dicastal Wheel Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Qinhuangdao, China. With eight sites in Germany, the Czech Republic, China and the USA and 3,291 employees, the KSM Castings Group is now globally positioned and achieved sales of 520 million euros in 2015. Hildesheim, with 1,<strong>03</strong>0 employees and sales of 182 million euros, is the heavyweight of the Group. Its main customers are VW, Daimler, Audi, ZF Friedrichshafen, Magna, Great Wall and FAW. A financially strong investor CITIC Diecastal, the new owner of the Group, is the world’s largest aluminum wheel rim producer. Together with KSM Castings it is one of the world’s 100 largest automotive suppliers. 30 to 40 million aluminum wheel rims leave CITIC Diecastal’s conveyor belts every year – more than at any other serial caster. To compare: the camshaft carrier line is one of the largest series at Hildesheim, with 1.3 million components a year. The involvement of this strategic investor has brought a variety of advantages: “This partnership offers great financial stability without the new owner interfering too much in our daily business,” explains Dr. Greven. “CITIC is not interested in the basics of the casting process, they already master these themselves. It is more about our production system and our way of producing components, in other words about quality,” Then he goes into more detail, continuing: “This is a win-win situation in my opinion. CITIC is interested in our expertise and we have the advantage of being able to offer our customers global solutions. It is thus possible to offer VW wheel carriers from China that are produced using the same processes and with the same alloys and properties as those produced in Germany. Not many foundries can offer that!” Dr. Greven, who has worked at KSM since 2005, believes that the greatest growth potential is anyway in China, though KSM Castings also built a new plant in Shelby in the US state of North Carolina in 2014 in order to profit from the light-construction potential on the American market. “This strategy also safeguards jobs here in Germany,” he stresses. A complicated process Change of scene to a magnesium melt operation: dressed in a matt silver protective suit, magnesium melter André Höltermann (who trained as a foundry mechanic at KSM Castings) opens a hatch on the melting furnace. He is illuminated by a cone of searing white light and, with practiced movements, he starts deslagging the 2.3 metric ton furnace. In order to prevent contamination of the melt through contact with air, a trough filled with argon protective gas runs from the melting plant 42 Casting Plant & Technology 3 /<strong>2016</strong>
KSM has increased its manufacturing capacity among other things by six machining centers with robots chining cells
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Page 4 and 5: K FEATURES INTERVIEW Bosse, Manuel
Page 6 and 7: K INTERVIEW “Replacing equipment
Page 8 and 9: MOLDING MATERIAL Aerial view of Qua
Page 10 and 11: MOLDING MATERIAL Figure 2: colour).
Page 12 and 13: K COREMAKING Author: Thorsten Schau
Page 14 and 15: K COREMAKING Figure 3: The flat Fib
Page 16 and 17: The different types of robots harmo
Page 18 and 19: K XXX Figure 3: Two Kuka KR 300 rob
Page 20 and 21: K QUALITY ASSURANCE Authors: Christ
Page 22 and 23: K QUALITY ASSURANCE critical compon
Page 24 and 25: K QUALITY ASSURANCE Up to 20 t of l
Page 26 and 27: K QUALITY ASSURANCE ter-high unmach
Page 28 and 29: K QUALITY ASSURANCE Author: Ralf Si
Page 30 and 31: K CASTING TECHNOLOGY Author: Mathia
Page 32 and 33: Figure 2: Grinding and deburring of
Page 34 and 35: K CASTING TECHNOLOGY Ready for acce
Page 36 and 37: K CASTING TECHNOLOGY Figure 3: Read
Page 38 and 39: K SOFTWARE Author: Matthias Holzapf
Page 40 and 41: After die casting, the magnesium co
Page 44 and 45: Metalworker Raphael Sanchez works o
Page 46 and 47: K COMPANY maximize value creation,
Page 48 and 49: K NEWS YXLON Defect evaluation for
Page 50 and 51: K NEWS The foundry equipment will c
Page 52 and 53: NEWS HERTWICH ENGINEERING Order for
Page 54 and 55: K NEWS Production of aluminum die-c
Page 56 and 57: K BROCHURES Insulation technology 4
Page 58 and 59: K INTERNATIONAL FAIRS AND CONGRESSE
Page 60: Competence in Shot Blast Technology

CPT International 03/2016

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