2004 Foundry of the year: John Deere Foundry from CAD to casting in 12hr ... the on fashioned way: proving that nothing is impossible, this iron facility produced a production-grade casting using traditional methods from CAD design to delivery in 11 hours and 48 minutes.

The past MODERN CASTING Foundry of the Year Awards have been granted to plants showcasing feats of engineering excellence. Whether it's a new molding line, melt system or environmental controls, the award has been centered around a technological and process achievement that raised the bar for the rest of the industry to follow.

While this year's award winning plant--John Deere Foundry, Waterloo, Iowa--has definitely raised fine bar on rapid prototyping by producing an engineered component via traditional nobake molding in less than 12 hrs, its success also is one every metalcasting facility from green sand to diecasting and from steel to magnesium can relate to and learn from.

In today's globally competitive casting market, the greatest advantage U.S. metalcasters have over their foreign competition is proximity to the majority of their customer base and the customer service opportunities this proximity provides. Possibly the greatest benefit derived from this proximity is the ability to be flexible and shrink leadtimes on casting orders to supply components to our customers in a just-in-time basis, meeting and surpassing their delivery requests.

John Deere's achievement in 2004 proves that regardless of plant size (in this case, 286 employees and 400 tons of production per day), short leadtimes are a reality. This plant's ability to use traditional casting methods with hard tooling and go from computer design to delivered production-grade casting in 12 hrs has earned them the distinction of being named MODERN CASTNG's 2004 Foundry of the Year.

Healthy Skepticism

OEM customers, design engineers and purchasers are enthralled with rapid prototyping technology. The ability to make a part in days that is ready for assembly or to test it for form, fit and function with the rest of an assembly (to ensure quality before permanent tooling is made and large production levels are started) can be critical.

"While I'm a firm believer that 31) modeling and CNC machining have made a huge impact in the casting world, I am not yet convinced that some of the 'next level' of rapid prototyping equipment is necessary," said Mike Kuebler, John Deem manager--quality, sales and service. "We don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make prototype parts fast."

Kuebler's belief became a goal for John Deem Foundry as he set up the job that would prove the plant's ability to use traditional casting processes to produce an engineered cast component at a rapid prototype speed.

"I began wondering just how fast we could create a dimensionally approved casting from the time the 3D model was released until we delivered the casting to the customer by using a little old thing called 'project management" in addition to the technologies we already possess," said Kuebler. "It seemed the average person I surveyed estimated about 3-5 days, and most thought I was crazy when I set a goal of less than 24 hrs. But as we began to layout a project Gantt chart with all the various tasks identified, the team members started to realize this was something we could do.

"The only resistance was probably reservations from people who thought if we succeed at this, it's going to become an expectation," Kuebler chuckled.

While John Deere Foundry believed it could achieve the goal, it needed a customer to believe. This customer was Dennis Bowman, a senior staff engineer with the John Deere Product Engineering Center. Bowman identified a new program that required a prototype casting. It was a 25-lb. gray iron bearing quill. This casting required a one-piece core produced in a split nobake corebox.

The foundry worked closely with the product engineers in the development of this cast component to ensure design for manufacturability, performing casting process modeling on the component as well. "'This design work interaction is the key for any casting job, but especially with the time crunch of rapid prototyping," said Kuebler.

Once the CAD design of the model was complete, Bowman would be the one to release the geometry to the metalcasting facility and start the clock on the prototyping process. At the end, Bowman also would be the ultimate customer in the project, accepting delivery of the finished casting.

"Design schedules are continually being shortened for competitive reasons or by mandate due to regulatory compliance," said Bowman. "The use of rapid prototyping to deliver up-to-date test parts in the most timely and cost-effective manner can provide increased competitiveness, reduced risk and a host of other benefits."

He continued, "An example could be a mathematically analyzed system, which has allowed a design to achieve confidence of function, yet where further optimization may be achieved through correlation established in laboratory testing using rapid prototype parts. Providing working prototype parts as a part of a more complex system to allow testing also drives the need for this type of part. The sooner parts can be obtained after the final design model is completed, the quicker laboratory tests and application testing can be done and schedules met."

While everyone was in line in the theory of the process, this was far from the execution.

Kuebler stated that the keys to any successful project on a tight schedule are communication, organization and coordination. In addition, concurrent engineering during the development was essential. Also, having suppliers closely aligned with your business is a must. In the case of prototypes, John Deem has a couple of options. It has a small jobbing department capable of producing cores and molds. In addition, it has a close relationship with American Pattern and CNC Works. Waterloo, Iowa.

American Pattern was selected to produce the pattern and corebox tooling while John Deem would pour the molds, shakeout, blast, finish and layout the castings, and then deliver the finished components to the customer.

"American Pattern didn't have to support (the project) as strongly as they did," Kuebler said. "They were a real key element in this thing; they got really excited about it and wanted to see what they could do, too."

"The advancements in pattern technologies that are used to cake a casting from a design to a recognizable chunk of iron are quite remarkable," said Burk Miehe, president, American Pattern and CNC Works. "Long gone are the days of a pattern development department filled with draftsmen and a pattern shop filled with patternmakers building wood master patterns."

He continued, "We've invested heavily over the past several years with a goal of becoming a more diversified business with the ability to provide the 'total package' of pattern services ... Improved technologies such as high speed CNC machining allow Renboard patterns to be produced in less than half the previous time by faster spindle speeds and feed rates."

John Deere Foundry generally operates with 15-day leadtimes once the tooling has been completed. Kuebler said they have produced temporary tooling and castings in a week when customers were desperate,

"We all know if something is urgent, you can pull strings and get it clone (faster)," he said.

Thus, the team was assembled--from designer co metalcaster to tooling manufacturer to customer. But could the goal be achieved?

The project began at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 25 with the release of the finished CAD model.

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Lessons Learned

Completing the casting in less than half the time planned allowed John Deere to draw a number of conclusions about its capabilities. Bowman credited the efficiency of all the personnel working on the project. "Their knowledge of the process and their simultaneous efforts as a team during the design and procurement stages of the project was paramount to achieving the goal," he said. "A foundry with consistent, well-defined processes that are repeatable will deliver a quality part that is sound, easy co clean and dimensionally correct."

In addition to acknowledging its employees, the record-time casting opened some eyes toward what can be slated for the future. "We underestimate what we can do if we stretch ourselves," Kuebler said. "I think everyone involved would agree with that."

He continued, "You don't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to accomplish things quicker. We have the technologies available to us when we figure out how to put them all together and utilize them together. We don't have a problem producing prototype castings. Our folks do a wonderful job. If we need to get something out in a week, we're going to figure out a way to do it and we're going to get it done. We're making prototype castings a whole lot faster than we did 10 years ago."

Despite the metalcasting facility's utilization of up-to-date technologies, such as solidification software, Kuebler said that he doesn't expect his boss to propose investigating rapid prototype equipment any time soon. "The thing about rapid prototyping equipment is that maybe you can make a casting in 24 hrs, but you only have one casting," he said. "If I needed to make 10 pieces of our 12-hr. casting, I could make them all in less than 24 hrs. because I have the pattern and corebox at a lot less cost."

But other than reduced leadtime, Kuebler saw a more significant lesson learned from the project--waste-free manufacturing. This includes a number of concepts, such as Meat!tying wastes in the operation, which can lye everything from time to excess inventory. He asked rhetorically why can't every component flow the same way. "If you're producing to a schedule driven by your customer's orders and you are addressing constraints within your operation, you shouldn't have big piles of inventory," Kuebler said. "I think that's ,a here the most valuable lesson for us is--learning how to be more of a lean manufacturer and eliminating wastes in our operation.

"That's something we've been exploring for the last couple of years. How does lean manufacturing and just-in-time production really apply to a foundry. Every new Deere program we're involved with wants faster deliver times. We never seem to have the time we would like up-front so we need to find ways to do things faster. It's a fact of life. New program introductions are much more frequent than they have ever been."

Kuebler noted that John Deere Foundry has made significant strides in efficiencies over the last several years and continues to look for new ways to drive improvements, reduce waste and lower costs.

"From a cost/ton, quality, environmental and safety standpoint, the turnaround this foundry's made in the last five years is remarkable," he said.

Living in Captivity

John Deere Foundry, Waterloo, Iowa, is unique in today's U.S. metalcasting industry as a captive plant that is growing. Most OEMs have decided to close their metalcasting plants and source their engineered cast components from outside suppliers.

"If you would have told people a couple of years ago that we'd be making 100,000 tons of castings this year, they would have never believed you," said Kuebler.

Business has been very strong for this cope and drag green sand (with molding lines measuring 42 x 66 in. and 50 x 66 in.) and nobake metalcasting facility. With 55 60% of its production being gray iron castings and the rest ductile iron (using 100% coldbox cores), Kuebler said business has been steadily growing for the last three years. Producing castings for strong end-use industries such as agriculture and construction has helped. (Forecasts show ductile iron casting use in agriculture and construction is expected to grow at 2.3% and 2.8% annual rates respectively for the next 10 yrs., and gray iron 1.1% and 1.6% annually). But Kuebler also noted that the metalcasting facility has been successful in converting weldments to castings, picking up more than 12,000 tons in new conversion orders in the last three years.

One of the keys for the continued strength at the plant was the capital investment it made in its melt department five years ago. In September 1999, John Deem Foundry tapped the first iron from a major melt department overhaul. The new installations included three, 23-ton medium frequency coreless induction furnaces (three of the most powerful in the world), each equipped with back tilting for slag removal, integral close-capture fume collection covers and refractory push out systems. The furnaces replaced six electric arc furnaces (EAF) for primary melting with a capacity of 13-15 metric tons/heat each. The EAFs duplexed into six channel holding furnaces, each with a capacity nearing 85 tons of ready-to-pour molten metal. At the time of installation, the furnaces were the largest ever installed.

"The melt department changes have been tremendous," said Kuebler. "The predicted benefits all have materialized."

The facility's safety incident rate was reduced significantly and it has now gone 2.2 million hrs, without a lost-time accident.

For More Information

Visit www.moderncasting.com for a closer look at the equipment installed at John Deere Foundry.

Visit www.americanpattern.com for a closer look at today's pattern and tooling capabilities.

John Deer Foundry Waterloo, Iowa

Metals Cast: Ductile and gray iron.

Mold Process: Cope and drag green sand and nobake.

Core Process: Coldbox and nobake.

Melting Process: Medium-frequency coreless induction.

Markets Served: Large (100-1500 lb.) drive train components for agriculture and construction.

2004 Shipment

Forecast: 100,000 tons/yr.

Size: 1.2 million sq. ft.

Employees: 286.

Staff Officials: Kris Einsweiler, manager-foundry operations.