Willson said. “When armed with that special expertise, investment casting offers an incredible freedom of design that allows designers to com- bine multiple features, reduce the part count and significantly improve both the quality and affordability of their engineered products. O’Fallon Casting wants to help educate our customers to be better casting engineers and to avoid designing excess cost into their products.” O’Fallon Casting stresses concurrent
engineering to its customers and holds design classes in O’Fallon or at cus- tomer’s facilities. Te classes teach more than just design rules of thumb; they strive to convey an understanding of the underlying reasons and the effect design decisions have on cost. “We have a lot of engineers that
graduate and get jobs in design and their exposure to castings is limited,” Gimeno
machining was minimized. “I love taking that casting
A technician inspects the internal cavity of a wax pattern with a fiber- scope; the image is projected on a monitor.
said. “What we are trying to do is expose engineers to the capabilities of the invest- ment casting process to show them they can eliminate several components that will result in significant cost savings.” Te sales and technological changes culminated this year in winning the AFS Casting of the Year competition for an intricate electronics housing made for the defense industry. Te cus- tomer avoided hours of fabrication and assembly by combining multiple parts and features into a single, rigid piece. It is lighter and more precise than a comparable fabrication, and secondary
to different events to show that if someone can visualize a part concept, we can generally cast it,” Willson said. “How do you design a casting? Easy. Visual- ize the features you need and knit the material around what you want.”
Now that the company has expanded
to accommodate additional casting pro- duction, Willson and the rest of the sales team have work to do. Gimeno predicts that in the next 20 years, much of that growth will come from the forecasted growth of the aerospace market. Cur- rently, 55 to 60 percent of O’Fallon Cast- ing’s production is in aerospace. Other major markets include defense, medical and air and fluid flow. Based on its track record, O’Fallon Casting appears poised to fill its capacity through customer education and contin- ued innovation on the shop floor.
34 | MODERN CASTING January 2014
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