sales of $4 million. The NEW Uni-Cast began under the guidance of Mr. Fine who is no stranger to investment castings. At the time Henri had 30 years’ experience working with Pechiney and Howmet which
included being President of
The Cercast Group (a conglomerate of aluminum investment castings foundries owned by Frank Valenta and eventually purchased by Howmet). Henri was able to bring in a few key players from his past along with some of the existing Uni- Cast management to regain focus back on defense contractors and aerospace manufacturers. Uni-Cast had a great computer system for manufacturing and quality. However, it became clear that Uni-Cast did not have the technology to be successful in making larger castings. With the new management in place Uni-Cast began modernizing its equipment and process. Starting with the wax department and shell room followed by foundry, washout and grinding.
Along with the new
ownership came new opportunities and business flourished. In the first five years Uni-Cast received 185 new tools and 165 transfer tools.
successful in the market place and soon had grown to 125 employees.
Uni-Cast was very Process
changes and new employees created a
lot of scrap which lead to poor on-time delivery. Some customers left but most stuck with them during this difficult time. As one of them bluntly said, “You’re all screwed up, the only positive thing I can say is that you know it”.
He, like
most customers, was optimistic that they would eventually fix our issues. By 2008, sales had more than quadrupled and Uni-Cast had mastered the art of making rapid prototype castings from laser generated patterns. In addition, they became more proficient in manufacturing large sophisticated castings. Business was also heavily dependent on the military sales and defense spending.
By 2009 with the end of the war
in Afghanistan and Iraq, sales start declining. Uni-Cast decided to work on developing a high property process to make castings for demanding structural applications. After many attempts, a small experimental process proved very promising. In 2010, a full size process was installed in a new foundry. The SPARK process was created and soon after Uni-Cast was qualified to the Boeing BMS7-330 specification for aircraft structural applications.
This
process brought on new customers like SpaceX and new structural applications from existing customers. Today Spark
Sales are 30% of Uni-Cast business and 20% of Sales come from rapid prototypes. In 2018 Sales were finally higher than the previous record set in 2008 and with a more balanced mix. Uni-Cast has continued to adapt
to the ever-changing demands of their customer base. One of which is the need for larger castings.
To accommodate
this Uni-Cast has implemented a two phase expansion plan. Phase 1 finished at the beginning of 2020 with a 2,700 sq. ft. addition to the South side of the building, more than doubling the existing heat treat capacity with two new large T4 drop furnaces. By the end of 2020, Uni-Cast is planning another facility expansion to the North side of the building adding over 10,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space. This will allow Uni-Cast to continue investing in new equipment focused on manufacturing larger castings while at the same time reduce the pressure on some existing operations that would otherwise cause bottlenecks in the future.
Uni-Cast is committed to maintain a professional team to deliver state of the art castings, pushing the envelope to be the technological leader and will continue to invest in its operation to be a world leader in the manufacturing of complex aluminum investment castings.
August 2020 ❘ 19 ®
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
