This blog presents a compelling case for foundries and casting manufacturers to take concreate action methods to save time and money during the processes of product development and quality control (QC). The most important step in the opportunity for cost and time saving include reducing production downtime by accelerating control quality. Procedures should be in place to reduce the number of iterations during product development. A rapid process that can quickly collect and measure a large pool of data and make it readily available to any operator, no matter what his experience and expertise level is, is the need of the hour.

Shop floor inspections that do not require the castings to be shifted to the CMM in the metrology lab can save valuable time and money. Because of the sheer size and weight of the castings, the measuring solution should be highly portable and come to the part, definitely not the other way round. As a result, the measurement instruments should not be sensitive to instabilities in the environment, including changes in humidity and temperature and vibrations, which are not uncommon in Foundries in India.

Third, do away with CMM inspections when they are deemed unnecessary. We know that CMM inspections consume a lot of time to program and operate, with multiple and frequent bottlenecks. Therefore, non-critical inspections are repiloted to an alternate solution that provides the required accuracy, thereby saving CMM time and making it accessible for other more critical controls. Under ideal conditions, the alternative solutions should enhance inspection and analysis with high-resolution, high-density and non-contact measurements.

Casting inspection on the CMM:
Foundries must look for a single metrology instrument that can be deployed for the measurement of various shapes, sizes and complexity levels, without any powder needed for shiny surfaces. By this, the operator can use the same measuring solution that they are most familiar with whatever be the shape, size, surface finish or geometry of the required castings.

As a foundry and casting manufacturer, even we have this question: what is this solution that provides portability, accuracy, speed and versatility? The answer lies in the combination of the different action methods seen above in solving a myriad of challenges confronting product development and quality control.