Throughout my years in the foundry industry I have come to realize that the process of getting a casting produced from a design has changed significantly. Gone are the days of taking a blueprint to a pattern shop and have them create a master pattern for you, then you would take the master pattern to the foundry of your choice and they would create a production pattern that would suit their needs. Typically you would hold the master pattern in your archives, and when an engineering change was needed, or it was decided to move to a different foundry, you would make the changes to the master pattern, and start the process over. The master pattern was the way companies were assured the casting maintained its dimensional integrity throughout the years of changes.
In today's digital world, a company now sends a blueprint or cad model to a foundry, and their pattern shop uses that information to create tooling cad files to produce the pattern equipment. This new process has significantly shortened the lead time, and cost to have a pattern produced. The problem is, when it is time for engineering changes, or you need to move the pattern to another foundry, the process must be started all over again, and you pay for all of that cad work again. This creates other issues beyond the cost; unless the old pattern is reverse engineered, or you use the original pattern shop, the chances of the new casting matching the old casting are not very good. The problem is the company has no master pattern. Along with the pattern issues, other problems are also created; the companies cad model or blueprint is not an accurate representation of the casting because of the parting lines, and associated draft, and machine stock. Many companies attempt to create accurate casting cad models, but very few can produce models that have the correct parting, and draft necessary for molding, the engineers just don't have the casting expertise. Some larger companies have employed casting engineers to alleviate this problem, but this is only cost effective if they have enough casting work to justify the full time expense.
Because I deal with these issues on a daily basis, I have come up with the idea of DESIGN 4 CASTING. I feel I can help bridge that gap between the engineering department, and the foundries, and provide companies with accurate casting models, and tooling models they can maintain in their cad archives, and function as master patterns. Another service I would like to offer is to work with a companies engineering department to consult on parts as to what is necessary to make a quality casting, and let them create the models. After a while they will gain the knowledge necessary to do this work on their own. There are many variables that go in to making a quality casting, and covering all of the variables up front, in the design process, will provide for a much smoother new product start-up and a greatly reduced cost. Imagine sending a machine shop a casting model before the casting is even produced, and have the confidence that it will be an accurate representation of what they will receive. This undertaking has the companies that don't need a full time casting engineer in mind, a casting engineer on call.
This service will also cut the cost of, and assure the accuracy of models used for additive manufacturing, and all of this applies to existing jobs as well as new jobs.