“In the ‘90s, [the diecasting industry] didn’t have a good way to do jobs of 500 to 2,000 parts. If a customer wanted a die casting at the 500 to 2,000 range, we did not have an economical process. Now we do.” —Jim Merritt, industry consultant
boxes at that size. To be more cost effective, North American diecasters are fi nding ways to fi t more castings in a tool and prolong tool life.
“Our biggest problem in competing globally is tooling price,” Merritt said. “If we can build one tool to make four different parts, we can be competitive.” Flow and thermal simulation advancements have given diecasters better process con- trol and better fl ow through gates, so they can balance a family of
tools to provide a
better casting yield, according to Merritt.
“We can more easily build 10, 12
or 20 cavity tools today. The other low-cost nations aren’t really savvy on building complicated tools yet,” Merritt said. “Our guys know how to do it and are investing in the software and tools.” Tool steel surface treatments that
prolong tool life also are emerging in North American diecasting facilities, which is critical for keeping prices down on high volume jobs. Olson said he is starting to see
some parts returning to North Amer- ica as the price difference becomes more competitive.
“I spend a fair amount of time in Asia—making four trips this year so far,” he said. “Prices are
defi nitely on the increase over there. You don’t hear as much about quality, but the gap is narrowing on price.”
Casting Design Advantage High volumes can mean good profi t
margins, but Stroh said he is wary of certain high volume orders that might be labeled as commodities, which would be more likely to be produced overseas. The company instead looks for complicated castings
Fig. 3. This aluminum diecasting required a cast-in steel insert.
Twin City Die Castings inserted an alumi- num heat-sink (top) into a die cast mag- nesium housing.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010 METAL CASTING DESIGN AND PURCHASING 41
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60