cool and the metal solidifies. Tooling may include cooling fixtures and equipment to control the cooling rate and prevent defects.
8. Shell Removal: The ceramic shell needs to be removed from the solidified metal part. Tooling for shell removal includes hammers, chisels, robot end effectors and other tools to carefully break the shell without damaging the metal part.
9. Finishing: Tooling is used in the finishing and inspection processes, which may include grinding, sanding, machining and other operations to ensure the final part meets the required specifications.
10. Inspection: Inspection gages are also tooling. They can be used to hold parts for CMM measurements or to set up go/no go checks. They also need to be calibrated and maintained regularly.
Overall, tooling in investment casting is critical to ensuring the precision, consistency, and quality of the final metal parts. Well-designed and maintained tooling is essential for achieving the desired outcomes in the investment casting process. Many of you use some form of
ERP software system to manage your facility. Most of these systems include capabilities to track the usage of the tools described above. As part of the production steps, the usage of these tools can be accumulated and warnings for
repair or refurbishment measures
scheduled to make sure that the specific tooling remains viable. Some of these systems can even set flags within the ERP system when the tooling is not available due to repair. This prevents scheduling so parts do not pile up at a specific point in the process only to sit and wait, which is cost prohibitive and highly inefficient.
While the classic casting process has been described so far, the introduction of 3D printing into this environment adds additional management, but not specifically tooling. These devices need
®
maintenance and upkeep to remain available for production activities. Many ERP environments can provide the same level of usage tracking for all your machines, 3D printers included. Limits, warnings, and availability can be managed as well. In these cases, your ERP should be able to record the time and materials spent maintaining these machines or operations, providing you with answers to questions such as: • Is it costing too much to maintain? • Is it time to replace it? • Should I contact the customer and requote?
By using your ERP to track and manage these items, you are now working with data that can be shared, as opposed to a “gut feel” about where your operation is being affected from a cost or performance standpoint. For instance, if your 3D printer
needs to be offline for 12 hours every four days, your capacity needs to reflect this downtime. Otherwise, it will impact your ability to meet customer dates. Most customers expect you to deliver when promised, and if your scheduling environment in your ERP doesn’t plan for this downtime, you won’t be giving your customer a date you can meet. Additionally, perhaps the die that makes the wax component for the customer’s order is unavailable as it was damaged in a previous run. Your ERP ought to be able to advise you at the point of order entry that you flat out cannot even start that order until the die is repaired or a new one is acquired. These are just some of the examples
of how you can take advantage of your internal systems. For more examples or to discuss, please feel free to contact me at
pmccrevan@blinfo.com or call 269- 465-6207 x343
November 2023 ❘ 29
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
