Feature Article
Investment Casting and the Industrial Internet of Things
By Jim Byrne, VA Technology, Ltd.
eeping the IC industry ahead of competing processes demands that Investment Casting occupies the role of Intelligent Casting... Intelli- gent Choice for the casting customer, and Intelligent Control for the casting company in the total process applied. The
K Internet of Things (IoT)
represents an important step-change in creating an ever stronger technology platform on which to build the successful infrastructure for business security and ongoing longevity. Through enabling innovation of connectivity, company performance is transformed, and greater operational achievement and value is achieved.
What is IoT? Put simply, IoT is the inter-networking of physical devices, with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity which enable these objects to talk to each other. Machines talking to each other builds upon the collective merits of the individual machines. IOT is already well underway
affecting all parts of our lives, and for the Investment Casting industry, it offers particular benefits. It’s not without dangers, and it will pervasively introduce new challenges, particularly within the area of process security. As with all things offering a
significant upside, there is a potential downside, and the challenge to our industry is to harvest the upside, and defend against the downside. The investment casting process
prospers through technology, utilizing smart techniques to master and control the huge array of process variables naturally embedded at every stage of the process. The IC business is all about delivering complex shapes, in complex materials, and success is likewise all about implementing complex solutions made ‘simple through technology’.
52 ❘ October 2017 ®
Within the recent decades, Invest- ment Casting has transformed itself from a low tech Art form process to become a sophisticated, technology driven, ro- botically empowered, computer con- trolled, predictable process. Yes, there is still a long way to go in many segments, but the industry has vast experience of embracing and adapting automation technologies to improve its performance and IoT is simply another powerful step along the route forward.
Affect on Investment Casting The investment casting industrial process commences with the wax injection of the pattern, and ends with the quality assured, finished dimensioned, metal component. At every stage of the process IoT
will have a significant and beneficial impact, and over time the complete process will become IoT linked and interrelated with different models of
integration developed and evolved to meet the specific preferences of the different sectors of the industry, likely separated in terms of process analytics and process securities. One of the most important stages
in the process is the shellroom, where powerful IoT tools are already installed in the most advanced shell manufacturing systems, and many new developments are underway to meet the IoT goals of the process suppliers and end users alike.
So Where Are We Today? The modern shellroom is a sophisticated environment. From the time the wax pattern enters the shellroom and until the finished shell leaves the shellroom, the manufacturing process is fully automated, and manpower input is limited to supporting the process, or managing process variability. Process variability is the demon that
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