Bremen Castings adds machining & ductile iron in nine months.

Aiming for one-stop shopping appeal, this third-generation family-run iron foundry is aggressively implementing major changes.

When you look at the monumental changes that have taken place over the first nine months of 1996 at Bremen Castings, Inc. (BCI), you might think this a defining year for the third-generation owned gray iron shop in Bremen, Indiana.

Sure, there was 1968, when the firm replaced its manual and jolt-squeeze molding with their first of six Hunter automatic molding machines, and became that supplier's 127th installation worldwide. But it isn't every day that you see a foundry launching a ductile iron and internal machining operation within nine months, as BCI did this year.

But to James E. Brown (whose grandfather Ellis Brown founded the company in 1939 with Charles Kling and Harold Heckamen) 1996 was just another page in the BCI story. "I don't think this year or next year will be that much different from what we've done over the last eight years," he said. "We simply try to make major changes every year, and invest a lot back into the company."

So if you ask him and the other six management staff members to pinpoint a key year in the $18 million job shop's history, they agree it was probably 1988.

From 1982-87, said Brown, the company wasn't reinvesting in the plant properly and was living off its success from the 1970s. While sales were hanging relatively steady at about $14 million, the foundry wasn't profitable. Brown was named president in 1988, and immediately recost all the firm's castings. "In some cases, we returned to customers with 20-30% price increases. We separated those customers we wanted to do business with," he said.

"Working to get our costs in line is what helped save us. Three years later, we were making money again."

That same year, a 40-ton vertical channel induction holding furnace was installed to give greater flexibility and control in chemistry, quality and capacity.

Then in 1991, the union work force walked out, beginning a strike that lasted 30 months. The firm had become uncompetitive with the union's excessively-paid fringes and work rules, and couldn't meet the union's demands. Production was picked up by staff, and after one month 40% of the hourly workers crossed the picket lines. Today, the 160-employee, union-free firm has401K and gainsharing programs (averaged $2000 per employee in '95) and pays for training for employees at all levels.

In the years following the strike, the pieces were put into place for the big changes of 1996. The new and inexperienced work force grew its knowledge. Meanwhile, a Didion rotary shakeout was installed in '93, followed by a Hartley muller control system in '95.

Following the best year in its history in '95, ductile iron went on-line in January '96. Virtually, the next day, BCI aimed its energies toward machining, and the first castings were machined in September. Thus far, 1996 is shaping up as the second-best year in the firm's history.

Machining

BCI's biggest change had, at press time, been in operation for less than one week.

"It was a natural for us to come in-house with machining," Brown said of BCI's newest addition. "We've been subcontracting machining on our castings for more than 30 years."

Brown said he was waiting only for the right time and personnel. A record year in '95 answered the timing question, and the machining knowledge was found in Chet Piechowiak, who Brown and Mike Mroczek, v.p./general manager, met in Notre Dame's Executive MBA program. Piechowiak joined BCI as director of machining in October '95, and promptly laid out a $1 million business plan for a machining cell concept to be located in a new building. He placed the order for the machining equipment last December.

Piechowiak said: "A lot of end-users are getting out of their captive machining operations due to high labor contracts, and outdated plants and equipment. We're responding to them with first operation cuts, or completely machined castings."

Bremen's cell consists of a Mazak VTC-20B vertical machining center, a Mazak horizontal HTC400 machining center, a Marr Orbit rotary basket parts washer and a Mitutoyo Bright 504 CNC coordinate measuring machine (CMM). Tightly contained in a 25 x 33 ft area, the cell is operated by one worker.

As shown in the figure below, castings are loaded into the vertical and/or horizontal machining units. Then, following machining, they are placed in a rotary parts washer (cleans and coats with a rust-inhibitor). On a specified frequency, tolerances are verified on the CMM. The operator of the cell also places the castings into crates for shipment.

The two real keys to the cell, according to Piechowiak, are the horizontal center and the CMM.

Besides being able to machine multiple sides with one fixture, the horizontal unit's two-pallet changer optimizes machining time so that one part can be machined while the next is being fixtured. ("We get our load/unload time for free," he said.) With storage for 30 tools, it offers 10,000 RPM spindle speed with 15 hp rating.

"Not many shops have horizontal machining units," Piechowiak said. "With this type of unit, we can do in two to three handlings what might take another shop 10-15."

To illustrate how it compares with the more standard vertical units, he pulled a multiplaned transmission part from a crate. If the part was machined by a vertical unit, it would need to be fixtured--and machined--four separate times. On the horizontal unit, it is fixtured only once. By the time it leaves the tooling, it is fully machined.

BCI's vertical unit will be used to machine larger parts, like axles. Tooling is designed to be quick-change and used by either machine, adding to the flexibility. For instance, if the horizontal unit is busy, the universal tooling allows the vertical unit to help get the castings out the door.

Bremen's initial cell was designed for prismatic parts in the 1-50 lb range with a maximum length of 24 in. "Prismatic parts are where the horizontal really shines--it can beat the daylights out of the more standard vertical units. It can machine six sides without ever taking the part out of the fixture."

Making the CMM--the other key ingredient--part of the cell, said Piechowiak, forces operator-responsibility for quality. "Quality begins and ends in the cell," he said. "It is not a separate function. In most foundries, the CMM is placed off in an air-conditioned room somewhere. Here, it's integrated right into the production cell."

Another advantage, according to BCI officials, is that with the high technology and productivity, machinist-level skills aren't necessary to operate the cell. "We're making the tooling and the process as stable as possible, which reduces the skill sets needed to make the right decision," said Piechowiak.

Talking about the motives for entering machining, he said: "it's difficult to grow the casting business. You have to be creative. We didn't, however, bring machining in to take work away from our subcontractors--we have a good core of machine shops we work with. The real objective is to grow the business. It's a pull-through concept. We get the machining order, we pull through the casting work. And vice-versa."

Lon Kipfer, director of sales and marketing, added: "While our claim to fame is the success we've achieved with Hunter molding, this machining capability further differentiates us."

As of August, the cell was 70% sold. Additional cells will be created as demand dictates. Although the 15,000 sq ft building will be split between machining and warehouse space, it is large enough to accommodate nine more machining cells. Initially, BCI officials expect machining to generate $1.5 million in its first year.

Just recently, BCI reamed one of its long-term machining sources was suddenly closing its doors. "That threw us a curveball," Piechowiak said. "But because our own machining system is so flexible, we'll be able to accommodate some of that load and adapt, rather than scrambling to find a new source. Now, we can absorb that kind of impact with little pain."

Besides the additional dollars and customers it can now pull in, having onsite machining also has less-obvious benefits, such as being able to immediately respond to a discovered defect. "All foundries struggle to some degree with internal porosity that won't be revealed until machining," said Mroczek. "With our own machining, we can almost guarantee a defect-free casting."

Also, as Brown pointed out, logistical issues make clear sense for in-house machining. "One of our machining sources is 50 miles away, and you often need to ship the casting to a machine shop and to a painting source, and then on to the end-user. There's a lot of freight involved, and if there's a problem with the castings, you'll need to pay the freight on the returned castings. It makes a lot of sense fore foundry to do its own machining."

Ductile Iron

Brown said he knew in '88 that the foundry would one day be producing ductile iron, the flourishing son in the iron group. By 1993, having weeded out unprofitable capacity and seeing more requests for ductile iron, the foundry had room to consider ductile iron. Incidentally, only Mroczek and one foreman had any experience with ductile iron.

Kipfer said: "New jobs were emerging in ductile iron, and many gray iron jobs were being redesigned for ductile. If we didn't start pouring ductile iron, we were going to lose on both ends."

And so, the firm embarked on a $2 million investment to launch ductile iron. Besides needing to raise the plant's ceiling, a major capital equipment investment was needed. Because BCI's cupola wouldn't allow easy desulfurization, BCI purchased two 4-ton coreless induction furnaces with a 2000 kW power supply. Used for ductile iron only, the system melts 3 ton/hr.

Charge materials consist of Sorelmetal, gates and risers, and slitter-steel (a low-manganese steel). All are weighed on loadcells prior to charging. For nodularizing the iron, the Flotret process was selected. In this method, base iron is poured into a covered box containing the magnesium alloy. As it leaves the chamber, it is fully nodularized and ready to pour.

Despite the fact that the firm has now entered electric melting, Brown said BCI will remain a cupola-melter for gray iron. "There are strategic reasons to remain cupola-melt. Besides being a more affordable melting method, there's a lot of fighting for raw materials among electric melt foundries and minimills," he said, citing a local minimill using 90,000 tons of scrap per month.

"We're more flexible in what we can accept as charge materials. For electric melting, everyone wants the same grade. Scrap is becoming harder and harder to find."

Despite having to learn how to operate as a coreless induction melter, and training a work force "green" in ductile iron production, Brown said the transition went smoothly (save some physical aspects of preengineering that caused it to miss some deadlines).

Running on third shift to take advantage of power rates, ductile iron now constitutes 10% of BCI's sales volume. The firm is also exploring the possibilities of adding austempered ductile iron to expand their value-added offerings.

Flexibility in Design

Take a staff-guided tour of BCI, and the repetition of the word "flexibility" drowns out any of plant noise you may hear.

The firm's philosophy for designing flexibility in their processes its evident from a glance from molding through pouring. Three molding machines feed pallet lines, while the other three feed turntables, and all units have been laid out so that when needed, two workers can set cores from either side of the machine to increase cycle times.

"The pallet line gives us a buffer for pouring," Mroczek said. "It's a unique advantage if used properly. For instance, smaller molds are more efficiently poured on the pallet line, while the turntables, due to machine indexing, are really better suited for larger molds."

As the pallet line molds accumulate, a worker moves them forward to be poured. "There is additional labor with this approach, but we pick up the production to justify it. The turntables are not the total answer to production," he said. "You need to closely match molding and pouring to make it work ideally."

Pointing to the 40-ton channel induction holding furnace, Mroczek explained how it allowed them to increase the uptime and efficiency of the cupola. "We always go for what can give us the greatest flexibility rather than the lowest cost," he said.

The same theme rings true in core-making, handled on two coldbox and seven shell machines, in the shakeout and shotblasting area, and in grinding. With 200 customers and 1800 parts, maybe even 20-30 parts per day, you can see why we must be flexible," Mroczek said. "Being a job shop, you must be aware of balancing between cost-effectiveness and flexibility."

Kipfer added that such flexibility regularly helps out customers in a pinch. "We advertise 4-6 week lead times, but if a customer has gotten himself into a dam, we can deliver a cored casting in two days. We don't like to do it often, but we will."

`Talking' Processes

Another area of pride at BCI is its high level of computerization and its data collection processes. With 40 computer terminals throughout the plant, it feels it is ahead of other foundries its size. It also was one of the first foundries to add programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to molding machines.

The firm's real advancement, said Mroczek, is "getting the processes to talk to each other." Using two separate data collection technologies, one that is dependent on the PLCs (Allen Bradley's WINtelligent) and one that is not, [Foundry Information Systems' graphical statistical process control (GSPC)], information linking all major processes in the foundry can be collected. Then, similar to a language translation, both systems organize the data to provide a big-picture look at the intricacies of what went into producing a certain casting.

"The data is the voice of the process," Mroczek said. "Without it, you're guessing, and using experience and intuition rather than fact."

The GSPC system, for instance, files data on any given part number. Tied to major instruments throughout the production process, "it keeps track of what happened to a defective part," said Allan Pijut, systems administrator. "When a defect occurs, we can trace the casting's iron chemistry, hardness, sand analysis, temperature, etc., and can determine the causes."

According to Mroczek, quality has improved by 33% since the data collection systems were implemented. "Some foundries might say `we can't monitor all those casting variables.' But you can put your key processes under a data collection system and solve problems. You can reduce process times, see cause and effects, etc. The data doesn't lie."

Seeing the Opportunities

It's difficult for some companies to consider making minor changes, much less one of the significance of a ductile iron or machining launch. Being a smaller company, BCI can afford to think aggressively and respond quickly to opportunities. When asked how they moved so swiftly in the past year, Brown replied, "You won't find red tape here."

Brown credits his father, James L. Brown, for allowing him the freedom to challenge the status quo without being chastised if projects didn't work out. "Like my grandfather, Ellis, would say, `if you never ask, you'll never get it. That's how you make progress and move ahead,'" recalls Brown.

Likewise, he is passing those ideals on to a fourth generation. His son, J.B., is gaining cross-training experience throughout all areas of the foundry on two-year cycles and is currently managing the lab.

Piechowiak, who's worked for much larger companies, described the environment at BCI. "We as a committee think things out, but we avoid the `analysis paralysis' that occurs at some organizations."

When asked if venturing into machining and ductile iron without much knowledge was risky, Brown shook his head. "We don't all need to be experts. We did need someone with expertise, but how we manage things is what makes the difference."

He added: "We're always looking for the right equipment, the right people, the right new venture, etc. We always have to look for those opportunities. If you say `I'm just going to produce a casting,' you'll never see those opportunities."

RELATED ARTICLE: Bremen Castings, Inc.

Bremen, Indiana

Casting Data: gray iron class 20-40 and ductile iron grades 60-40-18, 65-45-12 and 80-55-06; 0.5-125 lb.

Annual Sales: $18 million.

Annual Shipments: 13,000 tons.

Markets Served: Motor vehicles, valves/pipe fittings, farm machinery, engines, pumps and lawn and garden equipment.

Processes: Automated green sand (horizontally-parted) molding, phenolic urethane amine coldbox and shell coremaking, cupola melt (gray iron), coreless induction (ductile iron).

Value-Added Capabilities: In-house machining.

Size: 125,000 sq ft (foundry); 7500 sq feet (machining).

Customers: 180, including Eaton Corp., John Deere, Schlumberger, Wilton Corp., Toro, General Electric. 1800 different jobs.

Employees: 160.

Year Founded: 1939.

Staff Officials: James L. Brown, chairman of the board: James E. Brown, president/CEO; Michael J. Mroczek, v.p. and general manager; Herman J. Hueni, director of administration; Philip J. Clauss, controller; Lon Kipfer, director of sales/marketing; Allan Pijut, systems administrator, and Chet Piechowiak, director of machining.