Inside ICI Who’s Mocking Who? Process Control Standard Subcommittee Moving Forward By Joseph E. Fritz, Executive Director N
o, not mocking in the teasing or scornful sense. I am making reference to the mock surveys that the Process Control Standard Subcommittee has been conducting as part of the beta testing phase of the ICI’s new Process Control Standards (PCS) Certification program.
In 2012, the ICI started its long
journey down the path of establishing this program, when the concept was first addressed at the 13th World Conference on Investment Casting (WCIC) in Kyoto, Japan.
Over the past two years, this team
has developed a KIV/KOV based foundry evaluation survey, addressing key aspect of an operation’s wax, shell and foundry areas as well as evaluating management support of the facility’s process control program. The survey addresses required elements that must be considered for all foundries, regardless of market or product type, as well as selectable elements that tailor the survey to meet the needs of
more demanding products.
Since that time, the topic has been addressed at numerous technical conferences and at the 14th WCIC in Paris, France, where support was offered by both the EICF and JFS. Over the past eight years, several generations of teams have worked on the project, taking it through a series of evolutions to where we are today, nearly ready for rollout to the industry. A driving force behind this initiative has been Nip Singh of S&A Consulting Group LLP, who first came up with the concept in discussions with Member Emeritus and former ICI President Perry Harvey at the 2012 Process Control Seminar. It has long been Nip’s vision to provide foundry’s with a tool that can be used to not only benchmark the current state of a facility’s process controls, but also provide a guide to improving those controls. His passion has been reflected in the hard work and diligence of everyone that has ever participated in PCS program development. This
spirit of dedication and
perseverance is alive today and is exemplified though the effort of today’s PCS Subcommittee, often referred to as the “Core Team”. Chaired by Nip Singh, members of this team are Member Emeritus Craig Lanham, Thad Nykiel (Bescast, Inc.), Tom Planz (Kovatch Castings, Inc.), Brian Ferg (Consolidated Precision Products) and yours truly.
8 ❘ August 2020 ®
facilities manufacturing This
comprehensive approach has proven its usefulness for two Member foundries that have participated in program beta tests, Kovatch Castings, Inc. and Bescast, Inc.
The first “mock” survey was conducted at Kovatch.
This review
was performed by the full Core Team, each member acting as an independent surveyor.
What we learned was
eye opening for the team, as our initial approach was very detailed, cumbersome and in some cases too subjective.
Going back to the drawing board, the team streamlined the survey, eliminating areas of redundancy and simplifying the approach to evaluation.
Criteria was
more completely defined and guidelines were established, making the overall survey more understandable by both the surveyor and the foundry. Since the tool was designed to support both self-reviews as well as independent third party evaluations, the decision was made to conduct two additional mock self-surveys, this time both Kovatch and Bescast performed self-evaluations. These surveys yielded good results in terms of the ease of use as a self-improvement tool as well as providing a clear indication of a foundry’s overall performance as a benchmarking tool.
On completion of the second round
of surveys, both Kovatch and Bescast indicated areas where process control improvement were clearly identified, making use of the program immediately beneficial. Yet, there were still some minor tweaks necessary to further enhance ease of use. The Core Team has addressed these minor issues and now feels that the program is ready for final evaluation. We believe that program is ready to be released to the industry as a PCS self-survey tool. The plan is to rollout the self-
survey portion of the program this fall at the Virtual Technical Conference and 3D Expo. It is through the self-survey process that a foundry can self-certify to the Bronze level. To achieve Silver and Gold levels, the survey must be conducted by a certified independent party. This aspect of the program will be introduced to the global investment casting community at the 15th WCIC in October 2021. There are a two things that we would like to accomplish before the formal rollout of the self-survey portion. These are additional beta testing (mock surveys at different foundries) and development of a formal PCS Surveyor training program. Before full system rollout next year, a team of independent surveyors to support higher certification levels must be established. The Core Team has the training piece well in hand, and will soon be reaching out to industry retirees to be certified as PCS Surveyors, but to address the additional beta testing, we must turn to you. If you have an interest in improving your foundry’s process controls while helping the ICI ready this new exciting program for rollout, I encourage you to contact me at 201-690-6686 or write to me at
jfritz@investmentcasting.org. Thank you for your consideration of this mutually beneficial opportunity.
GOLD CERTIFIED
PROCESS CONTROL STANDARDS
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