Continued from pg 13
medical prosthesis, turbo chargers and commercial castings. We also had the opportunity to work with some of the key suppliers to the industry, which helped to deepen our understanding of the process.
Q A
I guess that the domain of such different technologies, plus the
geographical different locations and the technicalities of the different process applications requires the availability of a competent and diverse integrated team. How is this achieved?
Yes, this is tough, and it takes considerable time to understand
the diverse priorities and preferred solutions for different market sectors and locations, but in reality, engineering is a universally shared language and having our own team located in the principal market areas helps to bridge the gaps. Equally
important, is that every
system is designed, manufactured, installed, and serviced by the company, so the opportunity for close communication and understanding is strengthened within the whole team and with the end users.
Q A
Companies with culture and companies with soul, they do make the difference. Can you speak to us about the culture and soul that inspire VA Tech?
Innovation and Can Do are at the heart of the company culture, and with these, we can design our future. Creativity is the fountain of great ideas, and putting the ideas into practice is what defines Innovation. This has been at the root of finding the best solution to meet the customers’ needs.
Can Do describes the attitude necessary to place in front of all contact and communications with colleagues and customers alike. It is the key attribute for all employees and is the foundation for training, learning, and the development of the employee.
Q
How is Can Do recognised within the company?
14 ❘ February 2021 ®
A
Throughout the life of the company, the annual Can Do
Awards have represented the high point of the year, and provides the company’s own annual Oscar Awards equivalent, albeit without the dressing up. It is attended by all employees at all locations and the company closes for an afternoon BBQ party in summer. The awards are presented in front of the whole workforce. Award categories include all things important to the company culture and well being, including education, customer service, teamwork, quality, etc. High among all the categories is Innovation and Can Do, and the importance of recognition and providing an award to all employees is paramount. Having won the Can Do:
Innovation Award one year myself, the award certificate still hangs most proudly on the office wall at my home.
Q A
Professional recognition is something that in many occasions is missing, but in your case you have had the opportunity to be recognized in several occasions. Can you tell us about those?
Winning the Queens Award for Enterprise in 2009 felt good and it
was a great day out to visit Buckingham Palace. This award recognised the team’s high level of achievement in international exports of systems and equipment to the investment casting industry worldwide.
Another moment of strong
company pride was in receiving the inaugural: ICI’s Innovator of the Year Award in 2015.
This was indeed a
great honour, shared and celebrated by all employees in every role within the company. On a personal level, and in further
acknowledgement and reflection of the team’s achievements, I have been delighted and privileged to become an inductee to the ICI’s Hall of Honor in 2016.
Q
In this conversation we have been looking back, but in more
specific technical aspects what would you consider the most important
engineering developments achieved by your professional career? Within
A the investment casting
industry, the most important task has been to develop strong engineering solutions for the shellroom, to enable reliable, and efficient productivity from receipt of the wax pattern through to delivery of the completed shells, ready for dewax. This has meant providing
equipment and systems to minimise labour dependency and reduce operational cost at every stage of the process.
Although the basic process across the industry is nominally the same, the Key Process Variable tolerances across the three principal sectors of aerospace, medical, and auto industry are critically different, and providing the total system solution to meet these differing requirements has defined the important engineering challenge and achievement. Innovation has been the fuel along
the way, and this has led to a wide array of IC specific product offerings and technologies. First among the technologies
developed was the mathematic modelling of the system. From the base system maths, the complete system is assessed to determine the overall system profile. Hanger capacities, robot configuration, in-cell slurry and stucco processing equipment and capacities, inter-process drying and final drying configurations are all established at the outset. The complete shellroom system
may represent a physically large set of equipment and therefore, industry sectors, available workspace area, and customer specific requirements can impact and determine the most suitable system configuration to be applied. The company has uniquely
developed Standard Cycle, Mixed Cycle and Rapid
Access Cycle,
manufacturing logic solutions to deliver these specialised efficient systems. An important element of the
company resource has been the widespread use of 3D CAD at every step of the design process and the significant
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 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
