Posts Tagged ‘steel foundry’

A Perspective on Chemistry and Metallurgy in the Investment Casting Industry

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
by Rick Price, Process Control Supervisor, Spokane Precision Castings Division of Spokane Industries

Ive always been fascinated with metals. When I was a young child, I used to stoke up the campfire as a Boy Scout just to watch aluminum cans melt. All I knew about metals at that time was that there was aluminum and steel were different. As I worked different jobs at Spokane Industries I learned about different alloys, chemistry and metallurgy and how those elements affect the steel. Though I am not a metallurgist by trade, I have acquired a great depth of knowledge through my thirst for learning and a variety of avenues of study and research afforded me through my employment at Spokane Industries.

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, through its Spokane Steel Foundry, Spokane Metal Products and Spokane Precision Castings operations, has been providing customers around the world with cost effective solutions to their steel castings and industrial fabrication needs since 1952. Today, SPOKANE INDUSTRIES is a modern and diversified company with plant and manufacturing facilities occupying more than 240,000 square feet. The company serves a large number of customers in many industries — from agriculture, construction and aerospace, to manufacturing, aggregate processing, and transportation.

The key factor when designing an investment casting is alloy selection. Strength, hardness, toughness, ductility, machinability, weldability, wear resistance and corrosion resistance are just a few of the design criteria that must be taken into consideration. In ferrous alloys for example, carbon plays an important role in determining hardness and strength. Other elements, such as chromium, molybdenum and nickel effect through hardness, or hardenability.

Chromium imparts corrosion and oxidation resistance in stainless steel when present in amounts greater than about 11%. Once the proper combination of various elements and weight percentages is determined, most alloys are then heat treated to attain the final properties. Castings are generally subjected to a high temperature soak, quenched at a pre-determined rate and then tempered at an intermediate temperature.

The chemistry of every heat of metal poured at Spokane Precision Castings is analyzed to insure customer specifications are met. Metal samples are taken at various stages throughout each heat and sparked in an optical emission spectrometer. During this process, each element emits a unique wavelength of light that is diffracted through a grating and directed to individual photomultiplier tubes. The measured light intensity is translated into a weight percentage for over a dozen elements. Each element has a range it must fall within for the metal to be in specification and to meet certain requirements.

Spokane Precision Castings runs this process on both a preliminary as well as a final sample to ensure consistency. We check chemistry, make alloy additions, pour the heat, and then test another button after the chemistry has been adjusted as the final chemistry for that heat. Our company is in the process of testing a new product to take a sample out of the stream of molten metal as it is being poured into the casting. This will improve our final chemistry analysis and results.

Currently, Spokane Precision Castings is working on creating a range of castings that would be made out of a cobalt-based alloy. Cobalt has many different properties than an iron-based alloy i.e. higher corrosion resistance; good wear properties, and is often used as medical implants.

As the company progresses, we want to improve Spokane Industries Quality Assurance efficiencies to transfer the knowledge of the Quality Assurance personnel to the technicians on the production floor. This constant push to resolve problems at the lowest level helps to rectify in process issues as they occur. We currently are implementing written and visual instructions to facilitate this transfer of knowledge and to augment our ongoing training and quest for constant improvement.

Jeff Kuntz, Production Manager at Spokane Precision Castings Division of Spokane Industries states To make a quality investment casting takes a great understanding of materials, a solid grasp on how those materials react with one another, a broad array of process controls and a quest for quality. Making a thousand castings as opposed to a single casting is key in understanding the investment casting industry. The investment casting process is very effective at producing consistent quality over a large run of parts. That being said, it is only true when the organization recognizes the dependency on tight process and quality controls in order to meet all customer demands as we do here at Spokane Precision Castings.

About the Author:
If your need is to find the finest Precision Castings available in the world today, the Precision Castings Division of Spokane Industries has the skill and expertise to exceed your specifications and requirements. Spokane Precision Castings = Quality

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Advertising | Comments Off

Maintenance Operations at Spokane Steel Foundry

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
by Justin Olesen, Maintenance Manager

When I took over the maintenance shop at Spokane Industries Steel Foundry Division in March of 2008 I knew it was going to be an experience that I couldn’t begin to imagine. It was a blank slate. With support from great ownership and a good core management group we could do anything we set our mind to. This wasn’t the first steel foundry that I have had an opportunity to help improve but I was hoping that we could be so effective that it might just be my last.

Spokane Industries Steel Foundry Divisions Maintenance Department is somewhat immature from an organizational stand point, but we have the fortitude and the tools in place to get from good to great in a timely fashion and in an orderly manor.

Spokane Industries Maintenance Department personnel are in a time of transition and change. And we all know how difficult that can be, especially with maintenance guys. I know because I am one.

We are starting our passage from reactive to proactive maintenance with a good base. eMaint Enterprises LLC furnishes our Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) support and they do an outstanding job. We have utilized their system to relocate and catalog over 3800 part numbers, tracked all of our critical to success metrics, built a purchasing platform, and we are even starting to benefit from mean time between failure data and work order history.

Using Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), the leadership of the department has started to turn preventative maintenance over to autonomous exercises, allowing specialized maintenance to perform detailed inspections to ward off catastrophic failure scenarios. We have been able to reduce inventory while still feeling confident we will have the parts on hand for scheduled maintenance once the inspection process reveals the useful life of the component to be nearly expired.

We have over two centuries of maintenance experience amoungst electricians and millwrights and I feel extremely lucky to have inherited the talent we have in this shop. Our task is now to get that knowledge documented and available to the younger staff members and to get the veterans utilizing lean maintenance techniques to determine Root Cause (RCA) during the repair process of failed machinery. We have already implemented several action items that have eliminated root cause of failures and moved some dollars right to the bottom line. The largest hurdle here is that we have had virtually no early machine management, and some of the equipment has been around a while.

Although we have an uncertain economic future and many challenges to face we are dedicated and unwavering in our quest for excellence and continuous improvement. After all, the mother of invention is necessity, and our necessity is to do more with less through increased efficiencies.

Production Manager for Spokane Steel Foundry Billy Newman states, “The opportunity to achieve success is great with Spokane Industries Maintenance Department and I believe the individuals within the maintenance department are up to the challenge. We have great leadership at the shift level and the momentum is in our favor. In my opinion we are poised at this point to attack the heavy hitters, and really start to benefit our internal customers.”

The road is long, but with facilitation from management, and support at the operator level we can make Predictive Maintenance a reality, and help Spokane Industries continue as a world class supplier of steel and iron castings.

About the Author:
The Maintenance Operations at Spokane Industries Steel Foundry Division is highly focused. Maintenance Operations are an invaluable department in the big machine that make a large and efficient Steel Foundry function smoothly and hum like a Swiss Watch.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Customer Service | Comments Off

Lean Manufacturing and Spokane Steel Foundry

Monday, March 2nd, 2009
by Billy Newman

Lean Manufacturing Definition: Lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as “Lean”, is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. In a more basic term, More value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as “Lean” only in the 1990s[1]. It is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes in order to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world’s largest automaker,[2] has focused attention on how it has achieved this.

Lean manufacturing is a variation on the theme of efficiency; it is a present-day instance of the larger recurring theme in human life of increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas of what matters. Thus it is a chapter in the larger narrative that also includes, for example, the folk wisdom of thrift, time and motion study, Taylorism, the Efficiency Movement, and Fordism. Lean manufacturing is often seen, with the benefit of hindsight, as a progression from, or a better attempt at the same goal of, earlier efficiency efforts”that is, picking up where earlier leaders like Taylor or Ford left off, and learning from their mistakes.

Lean Manufacturing focuses on two main points, reduction of through-put time and elimination of waste. Through-put can be described as the time it takes an order to be received until it is on the shipping dock. Elimination of waste can be seen in several different areas. The Seven Wastes are: 1) Motion; any wasted motion to pick up or stack, walk and/or lack of direction or access, 2) Over-production; labor needed to process more than is needed, 3) Transport; multiple locations for the same information and/or wasted effort to transport work, 4) Inventory; maintaining excess inventory of raw materials, work in process, and/or finished goods, along with outdated or obsolete information, 5) Processing; doing more work than is necessary, 6) Waiting; any non-work time, and 7) Defects; everything required to rework or repair form.

For Spokane Industries Steel Foundry Division, lean manufacturing is the single most effective strategy that will allow us to improve our quality while reducing our overall costs. In this commitment to Lean, we started with 6S, an acronym for: Safety, Sort, Simplify, Shine, Standardize and Sustain.

Beginning with 6S practices made sense for a number of reasons. It was obvious the old way of approaching business practices was outdated. Our production levels had plateaued and there was obvious waste all around us, but the culture of the employees was not such that change would happen on its own. Doing it the same way for years, our veteran workforce wasn’t about to change because in their view the system wasnt broken. 6S provided the visible change we needed to help jumpstart a revamped culture throughout the foundry.

We broke the foundry down into 10 sections and began implementing 6S. In each section we did an introduction class on 6S and Lean manufacturing, basically subscribing to a train-do model. Each member would actively participate in a kaizen event within a week of the class. In some cases we did the same section multiple times in order to achieve the desired results. At least one event was participated in by every foundry employee.

An additional step of our Lean journey was initiated with the understanding of Autonomous Maintenance. Autonomous maintenance is the initial standard in Total Productive Maintenance or TPM. TPM is a proactive approach that essentially looks to reduce catastrophic failures and inventory (spare parts) by preventative measures.

As we progress towards our future, we will continue our 6S and autonomous maintenance efforts while we perform Value Stream Mapping (VSM) of our processes. VSM is the series of processes that directly create value for the external customer by greatly streamlining our work flows. We will do this to identify bottlenecks, waste, safety concerns and communication breakdowns.

Tyrus Tenold, President of Foundry Operations for Spokane Industries, states, To this point, a growing asset to Spokane Steel Foundry are our Lean Manufacturing practices. As the culture continues to change, we implement new ideas on a regular basis. We have fully embraced Lean Manufacturing and we now look forward to seeing continuous improvements for the mutual benefits of customers and our ourselves.

About the Author:
Spokane Industries has proven itself to be a proven leader in the manufacturing of metal castings for the Crusher Wear Parts, Mining and Oil Field Component industries. 50 plus years of innovation! We make our castings as if our life depended on them.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Marketing | Comments Off

Melting & Pouring in the Steel Foundry at Spokane Industries

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
by Dave Davis

We have two electric arc furnaces here at Spokane Industries Steel Foundry Division. We utilize one for high chrome iron wear parts and the other is for our steel products. Each furnace has been updated with a computer touch screen which controls the tap position, amperage, and also controls all of the roof movements for charging the furnace. We also can keep track of which heats we have run and the alloys used in each heat along with brick life for each furnace which helps maintain and control furnace life.

Our Steel Foundry Division averages 5 tons of material per heat. We use only recycled steel in the charge, which is loaded from the scrap pile once it is weighed. Our overhead crane transports it down to the furnace area and using an orange peel type bucket it is positioned over the furnace for loading. Once the furnace is loaded and running it takes about ninety minutes from start to finish during which time we monitor temperature and also the chemistry of the melt.

The melters take three different samples. The first is to check for chemistry and carbon content for the blow down. We blow down at least 30 points – this is to ensure proper cleansing of the metal. The melters then take the chemistry and calculate exactly what alloys are needed to meet our customers specification. After we tap the furnace, another final sample is taken to make sure that every element is within specification.

At Spokane Industries Steel Foundry the melters use an ARL 3460 spectrograph to analyze each sample taken. It is only allowed to be poured once the final sample is taken and verified to be within customer specification.

The metal is transferred to the proper pouring station by overhead crane. First the crane picks up the holding ladle from the ladle area and transfers it to the furnace for filling. Once the chemistry sample has been taken it travels to the designated pouring station to wait for verification that everything is within specification before continuing on and pouring.

At Spokane Industries Steel Foundry our ladle department is equipped to pour everything from 50Lbs to 11500Lbs. We have many different ladles at our disposal. The side pour ladles range from 500Lb capacity to 1200Lbs and our bottom pours can accommodate 1200Lbs and all the way up to 12000Lbs. We also have a 3000Lb lip pour and a 3000Lb tea pot.

Most of our ladles are prepared using the board lining materiel that in turn provides less refractory and cleaner metal. It also allows ease of building and faster turnaround times. This method accommodates both steel and iron pours. We keep track of temperature to insure that a quality casting is produced as well as which ladle is used and who poured.

Our pouring ranges vary by part and specifications. The steel can be anywhere from 2850 to 2920 degrees and the high chrome iron range is 2500 to 2560. The temperature is taken throughout the heat so as to maintain quality and consistency.

Andy Kruse, Process Control Engineer states We also utilize a digital scale on our crane to monitor and capture weights which allows us to be more accurate with pour weights and allows us to not have short pours or a lot of end metal. This information also helps the melt side as well. We can maximize the heat size to what has to be poured and reduce end metal. We can also capture melt loss – all of which helps us to conserve power and be more efficient in this ever-changing field we love.

Spokane Industries Steel Foundry Division is a state of the art and well managed facility prepared to meet and exceed our customers expectations and specifications. On-time delivery, fast turn-around and industry leading quality controls are what our customers expect and exactly what we deliver.

About the Author:
My experience in the Steel Foundry profession has shown me that Spokane Industries offers exactly what the Steel Foundry Industry begs for. Timely delivery, high levels of quality control and testing, and of course a Steel Foundry management team that can meet your requirements.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Blogging | Comments Off

Dimensional Verification of Steel and Iron Castings

Friday, February 20th, 2009
by Richard Palmer

One key benefit of steel and iron castings is the ability to be formed into complex, organic shapes that are not easily duplicated in fabricated, or even forged parts. Because of this, castings can achieve significant cost and labor savings, but these complex shapes can be quite difficult to inspect with traditional dimensional inspection techniques. The typical dimensional testing toolbox begs for a few specialty items to complete the task adequately.

In addition to the complex shapes that are common for castings, a steel or iron cast surface will be textured by the molding material that the molten metal was poured into, typically bonded sand. This surface texture can affect the repeatability and accuracy of the inspection if care is not taken during the measurement process.

One important issue that complicates the dimensional inspection of iron and steel castings is the draft angle that is required on patterns that are used in sand molds. Draft angles are a manufacturing requirement of the sand mold process that allows the pattern to be drawn back out of the sand after the impression is made. These draft angles are rarely shown on casting blueprints and solid models but are usually noted on the prints as: Draft not to exceed 1.5 Degrees, or something similar.

The dimensional inspection of castings has traditionally relied on the standard hand-tools that reside in most inspectors toolboxes: height gauges, calipers, radius gauges, snap gauges, tape measures, etc. These hand tools continue to play an important role in the inspection process, but, because of the unique issues with castings as noted above, they cant always be relied upon for the complete dimensional inspection that may be required. In addition to standard hand tools, Spokane Industries uses both a traditional, table-based Mitutoyo CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) that has a 24x24x18 working volume and a Faro-Arm with an 8-foot sphere working volume.

The traditional CMM is primarily used for the measurement of smaller, investment castings produced in our lost-wax facility as well as for the castings that are further processed by machining. The Faro Arm is a portable, articulating-arm CMM that allows for much more complete and detailed measurements than would be possible with either hand tools or the traditional CMM. Spokane Industries uses a Faro Arm that has an accuracy of plus or minus .003 of an inch. Although this accuracy is not as precise as a standard, table-based CMM it is more than acceptable for the tolerances usually applied to iron and steel castings.

The Faro Arms measurement software contains all the standard measurement tools that are common in most measurement software packages: plane, line, distance, circle, etc., but the Faro Arm gives the dimensional inspector the ability to digitally trace the contours of the casting and compare the CAD data directly against the trace. This tracing capability of the Faro Arm is accomplished by moving the tip of the arm against the feature of the casting that needs measuring.

The software will record the path of the tip as digital points or small, stitched-line segments. These points or line segments can then be measured in the software. Because of this free-form recording of the actual shape of the casting within the software, the dimensional inspector is able to record the true shape of the casting that can be measured, viewed on-screen, emailed for review, and rechecked even if the casting is no longer present. These features allow Spokane Industries quicker, more accurate dimensional inspections of castings that can be communicated with our customers via traditional dimensional reports, CAD/actual casting scan overlay, or a combination of both.

David Jolin, Quality Assurance Manager at Spokane Industries states, Another advantage of this scanning capability is to reverse-engineer existing castings that may not have a blueprint or cad-data. This is especially helpful if a customer has only a casting to provide to Spokane Industries to copy. Spokane Industries can scan the casting with the Faro Arm, generate a blueprint and CAD model and submit these back to the customer for review and approval. Once approved, Spokane Industries would then create the pattern for the molding operation, and then pour a first part sample. This sample can then be confirmed back to the created and approved blueprint, as well as against the scan of the original part.

The realm of dimensional inspection has moved far beyond the days of hand-written dimensional reports listing the results to the nearest fraction of an inch. The advancements that computer-aided inspection systems and the digital age have spawned allow us to produce parts and inspect them with more precision and detail than ever before. This increased detail results in a better understanding of the casting process that encourages engineers to design even more complex castings. As customer expectations grow, so does the ability of our QA department to meet and exceed them.

About the Author:
Spokane Industries high quality Dimensional Verification department is state of the art. Always on-time, our highly trained staff prides itself on Dimensional Verification that meets and often exceeds our customers expectations.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Marketing | Comments Off

Spokane Industries Precision Investment Castings Division

Saturday, February 14th, 2009
by Jeff Kuntz

Manufacturing Design Engineers often specify machining out of stock material, metal parts that in practicality would be more cost effective and efficiently produced as an Investment Casting. This happens because of the familiarity and abundance of machining facilities compared to the relatively small quantity and less understood advantages of Investment Casting operations. Similarly, parts designed as fabrications are often well suited to conversion to castings. In that never-ending quest to increase efficiencies and lower costs, companies are discovering the value Investment Castings can bring to their product lines.

SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, through our Precision Investment Castings Division, specializes in bringing near net shape casting production to the marketplace. SPOKANE PRECISION CASTINGS can minimize dimensional tolerances without machining or other subcontracting methods so that you may have a finished product ready for rapid assembly. Were able to produce parts that weigh as little as a few grams up to 80 pounds. In many cases, injecting multiple pieces or several different parts in a single die saves additional operations and reduces costs.

SPOKANE PRECISION CASTINGS offers an almost endless array of alloys. Precipitation Hardening Alloys, Carbon Steels, Low Alloy, 17-4, Tool Steels, Silicon Brass, 300 and 400 Series Stainless Steels, and most other air melts are common. We offer an endless number of commercial applications from the dental, military, food, automotive, and oil industries, to name a few. Our real forte is to get involved at the engineering genesis by taking multiple metal components that may currently be machined or fabricated and design them together. We can then create a single near net shape casting. This eliminates multiple operations, saves money, time and energy – to bring savings to the bottom line for our customers.

Converting fabrications to castings brings a multitude of benefits to a manufacturer. Investment Castings can oftentimes be designed much stronger, with less material, creating less weight and at the same time lower failure rates. In addition, where there are multiple parts creating a fabrication, a single casting can often times be designed to do the entire job. This results in assembly simplified workflow, time savings, lower overhead and improves uniformity and aesthetics.

SPOKANE PRECISION CASTINGS cross-trains its workforce to a high degree. Employees are encouraged to move from department to department throughout our production areas where strong visual and written controls facilitate process standardization. SPOKANE PRECISION CASTINGS has implemented many Lean Manufacturing processes where continuous improvement is ongoing and reducing variables ultimately drives lower costs.

SPOKANE PRECISION CASTINGS is augmented by in-house capabilities including machining, full dimensional layout, x-ray, spectrometer and Non-Destructive Testing of mechanical properties. We also perform Magnetic Particle Inspection, liquid penetrant and utilize heat-treat facilities both internally and contractually.

SPOKANE PRECISION CASTINGS has been for 18 years part of the Spokane Industries family. Since 1952 SPOKANE INDUSTRIES, its parent company, has been in the foundry. This offers full access to a large and diversified engineering department with the latest in CAD/CAM and Flow Test Analysis. We accept as well a large array of electonic files as well as your CAD/CAM files so that we can rapidly prototype and meet your specifications and schedules.

Jeff Kuntz, Spokane Precision Castings Production Manager states, SPOKANE PRECISION CASTINGS has been working with industries from military grade castings ” like Class II Armor Certified, to dental equipment castings with high esthetic appeal. Were accustomed to producing quantities that range from low volume/high variety to commodity products that range up to 80 thousand Investment Castings every month. Our goal is to exceed the customers expectations at every opportunity.

The combination of all of our in-house capabilities along with some local strategic partners help us stand alone in the marketplace and adds to our ability to help our customers meet their ever changing needs. Starting with our customers drawings and vision, we strive to meet all of your Investment Casting needs.

Bottom line ” faster R & D, first articles get to you faster and ultimately saves you time and money. Isnt that what its really all about?

About the Author:
As you investigate solutions for your Lossless Casting needs, find all of your Investment Castings solutions at Spokane Precision Castings. Quality, diversity, timeliness – the bottom line in Quality Investment Castings.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Tips and Advice | Comments Off