Do you qualify? You think your metalcasting firm can provide a casting superior to your competitors? Prove it.

Have you ever had a household task--say a broken water pipe--that required a professional to fix? You scrolled your phone book for local plumbing companies, and after asking several about their capabilities, you settled on the one that gave the best description of how it could handle the situation.

Reversing roles, have you ever been confronted by a casting purchaser to produce a component, only to lose the project to another firm? You discovered this competing firm promoted more of its capabilities than your firm did, even though you were an equally accomplished casting operation.

To prevent this situation from recurring, you want to prove to all casting purchasers that you are a qualified casting source so they have confidence in your products. Maybe your facility is the creme de la creme. But if casting purchasers don't know, they might not buy from you. You have to show them the great capabilities your casting firm possesses.

Detailed here are several means to prove to your customers you can deliver what they ordered so they won't turn their shoulders at your operation.

Show the Experience

When a new customer expresses interest in your firm, you want to showcase your casting talent. This includes displaying casting examples in your lobby and waiting/meeting rooms and providing literature, such as brochures and news article reprints, that describes your process capabilities and achievements. Simple methods like these promote the industries you've served and provide an expanded view of your casting history. Customers almost always want to see you've produced components for their industry because they'll feel comfortable your firm can produce their castings.

"If I'm a customer and the firm is making similar products (to my products) with similar quality requirements, sizes and needs, then I think they're probably a qualified source, and I can buy the part from them," said Raymond Monroe, executive vice president of the Steel Founders' Society of America, Crystal Lake, Ill.

Monroe, who has co-authored numerous articles regarding casting source qualification and purchasing, noted another method to demonstrate your production capabilities--prominently displaying certifications and/or awards in your facility. ISO and QS certifications never hurt, and all companies should strive to meet these standards. Another, and even better, method is posting accreditation that is industry-specific to the customer's needs. "If I'm in the railroad business, and I visit a foundry and see they're AAR (Assn. of American Railroads) certified, then I'm pretty comfortable they know (how to cast parts for) the railroad business," Monroe said.

In addition to such certifications, by displaying past customer citations and appreciation mementos, a casting firm increases its chances of successfully demonstrating it's a qualified casting source, according to Jiten Shah, president of Product Development & Analysis LLC, Naperville, Ill. Further, a firm can intrigue its customers by demonstrating details of casting production from recent jobs. "A great way (for a firm to prove it has experience and the capabilities) is to show the range and complexity of castings it has produced in the recent past with some cost, timeline and quality/rejection/scrap number matrices," Jiten said.

Along with past casting production, customers also tend to examine the number of customers a firm has. It's been specified often throughout the metalcasting business that to maintain flexibility, no casting firm should devote more than 20% of its business to a single customer. Therefore, if one customer discontinues part orders, the casting firm has others to continue its operation. Jiten mentioned a firm can stretch one customer to 35% of its business and still be in the safe zone. "As long as (the casting firm) offers diversity and is complementing from the cyclical nature of business, it is reasonable to devote a larger percentage to one customer," he said.

Monroe made note of how this number can change based on particular markets. For instance, a firm might devote the majority of its production to a large automotive OEM because it meets the OEM's requirements. That doesn't mean the firm can't merit other jobs. If it's dedicated to a concentrated customer segment, the firm must continue to develop new lines of castings for the long-term. "If I want production within the next five years of a relatively sophisticated casting, then I want management that's paying attention to the technology," Monroe said. "I want to make sure that the leadership and management of the foundry is compatible with the goals I have for that casting."

Communicate

For the customer to trust your facility will maintain its capabilities now and five years ahead, interaction is key. "You certainly want to promote the benefits to the customer of having good communications," Monroe stated. "So that probably means you want to provide the technical support and production support."

A tactic that would benefit both sides of the casting order is arranging visits with each others' facilities several times a year. This includes a firm's casting inspectors visiting the plant where the final product is assembled with the casting in place, which allows them to see how the casting is used, view the critical areas and discuss with the post-casting operators (machine shop, assembly staff, etc.) what exactly is needed.

These post-casting operators then can visit the metalcasting facility and observe first hand the firm's operation in terms of inspection and upgrading. These operators could identify methods to eliminate steps in the firm's casting production. "It would decrease the delay of delivery times and improve the cost," Monroe said. "So exchanging visits across the range of effective people in two organizations is one of the best communications."

Jiten and Monroe both stated that having designated points of contact, whether they are engineers or salespersons, are ideal so the customer always knows with whom to stay in touch. But communication isn't limited to just one person; it can span the entire casting firm. Monroe noted that the most effective customer-supplier relationships have three main levels of communication between the firm and customer:

* production (requirements through part count and leadtime);

* technical (quality issues, performance expectations, etc.);

* commercial (from the purchasing agent to the salesperson).

An obstacle in several customer-supplier relationships is purchasing agents/salespersons who often take on all three levels of communication, Monroe said. This often compromises engineering requirements to reduce costs, but if a casting doesn't sustain its end-use application, that customer likely won't return to your firm.

Jiten mentioned that to avoid such incidents, understanding the role each person plays on a staff also can bode well, especially during the casting design process. Design engineers are experts in product applications and requirements, he said, and metalcasting engineers (with their expertise of casting process modeling, tooling and molding processes, melting, etc.) advise the designers of how the casting will be produced to prevent error.

Another advantage of keeping the communication intact is improved casting design, which can be achieved with an in-house design engineering staff. Adept in-house teams can greatly improve the quality and cost of the components. Monroe noted the in-house team is familiar with additional functions for a casting and can make corrections to better fit the casting process. For example, the team can detect portions of a design where a weld can be replaced by a cast-on part, thus reducing cost.

Two drawbacks of having a design engineering staff in-house are incorporating one into your facility and maintaining the funding. Jiten said that economics factor in greatly to engineering departments because the firm must maintain enough casting demand to support the engineering staff or have customers that are willing to pay for it.

"A lot of the time, foundry owners forget to consider the tools engineers must have and the cost of acquiring and maintaining them annually to keep up with your customers (such as up-to-date casting process modeling software), and that may cost more than an engineer's salary," he said. "It's also very difficult to find smart, young engineers in the metalcasting industry for a variety of reasons, including lack of training and courses offered at schools. Sometimes it is even harder to retain the engineers even after you have invested a lot of money. It's strictly an economical and affordability issue."

In other words, if your firm is considering in-house design engineers, it must play the right cards to ensure it is not defeated down the road.

Add Value

Although hiring more employees for additional operations might constrict a firm's checkbook, the payoff could be well worth the investment, not only with in-house engineering staffs, but also with value-added services. Machining, rapid prototyping and subassembly all are methods in which a firm can augment its casting value, and these services are attention-grabbers for customers. Similar to the engineering staffs, value-added services allow firms to reduce cost and leadtimes significantly. "With machining and other secondary operations, value-added services are very important," Jiten said. "Buyers like a single point of contact with single accountability if something goes wrong down the line."

Even if the casting facility lacks the capacity for the value-added services, a number of firms outsource these operations to machining and prototyping companies, and the customer still receives the desired product. While many casting purchasers seek to increase their returns on investment, they seek for firms to take on the additional tasks needed for their components to avoid added investments.

According to Monroe, such customers likely won't purchase a casting that requires additional machining and subassembly, but would buy a subassembly that contains the casting. "If I'm an OEM, I want to look at those foundries that have the internal capacity to provide for that subassembly," he said. "So (what the OEMs) like to do is buy subassemblies on which they can just do the final assembly. And that benefits the foundries because they can make the quality cost tradeoffs in terms of casting production."

Promote Organization

When selling your casting operation to your customers, a tour of your facility always is appreciated. Customers want to see how their parts are made and who makes them, and your plant will receive additional points if it displays good housekeeping. Several means to achieve this are maintaining a clean shop floor (i.e. no piles of molding sand, scrap, etc.), managing inventory on all castings (many facilities use computer scanning devices for handling all casting orders accurately) and possessing adequate air-ventilation systems.

Extra equipment might have to be purchased to obtain that picture-perfect plant, but to a customer, if a firm meets or exceeds these aspects of housekeeping, then it's a representation of a commendable work ethic. However, the remainder of the casting operation cannot be sidetracked to preserve a clean plant. According Mike Gwyn, director 6f metals technology, Advanced Technology Institute, North Charleston, S.C., having the latest casting equipment doesn't always make your casting firm a top choice. Customers also are swayed by the firm's personnel.

"The shiniest facility is not always the best foundry," Gwyn remarked. "If I'm looking for a single attribute, I'm looking for bright, enthused foundry engineers. You want a cadre of bright people who like what they're doing, go out on the foundry floor a lot, are liked by the other employees, know what the problems are and care enough to find solutions right away."

Is Your Price Right?

Now that the customer is certain your facility can supply the needed castings, you must provide an accurate quote. This often is simple if your firm is qualified to cast parts for a specific industry. Thus, if you've cast numerous automotive parts, and a new automotive OEM comes to your firm for a part, your quote should be on target.

But if you're inexperienced with a particular casting, the customer could want your assurance extra costs won't be added in the end. There are several approaches to this.

Using your production schedule is one method to add validity to the quote. "By saying the quote is good for 15-30 days, or whatever is your normal production planning and forecasting capabilities you have," Jiten said, "you convince the customer that the quote is estimated based on current capacity and projects/resources on hand."

Another approach is developing an innovative commercial structure to agree on an initial quote if both parties are uncertain, according to Monroe.

"So, for example, a foundry may say 'I will make this part at the same price that the last supplier made it for the first five parts,'" Monroe said. "Then the foundry will look at its cost and have a serious discussion (with the customer) of what the price will be."

To arrive at this level price, a casting firm should keep the communication lines open so the quoting isn't based solely on becoming the lowest cost casting supplier. This means bringing in production and engineering staffs to explain what is essential and how that will affect the overall cost. Otherwise, the casting's price might be cheap, but additional machining and configuring not discussed during the quoting process could add to the customer's cost.

"When somebody under-prices work, it hurts everybody," Monroe said. "Many times the customer then doesn't get an acceptable product that it can use in a timely way. If the customer gets good parts but the foundry loses money (from the production), that foundry now has given the customer the expectation that the low price is attainable and reasonable."

With the recent market activity, casting firms must stay more vigilant with their pricing as there is even less room for error. Lower casting capacities have increased the focus on short leadtimes, thus burdening firms to support high production demands. Monroe said firms willing to establish a long-term supply relationship with their customers can alleviate the current situation and assure continuous production of the castings.

But even if the customer seeks casting orders for only the next four months, not four years, the most efficient method to prove you're a qualified casting source is expressing interest in the casting. This includes discovering what is critical to the customer, such as cost, timing, quality, requirements and/or the need for valued-added services. "Every potential opportunity must be viewed as an individual project," noted Jiten. "We all have one mission--to meet or exceed customer's requirements and expectations."

For More Information

"The Market-Driven Foundry--Part 1: Determining Your Foundry's Target Castings," S. Lane, MODERN CASTING, February 2003, p. 33-36.

"The Market-Driven Foundry--Part 2: Developing a 'Fact-Based' Marketing Plan," R. Bake, MODERN CASTING, March 2003, p, 31-34.

"The Market-Driven Foundry--Part 3: Survey Reveals Routes for Attracting Casting Business, Spending," M. Lessiter, MODERN CASTING, April 2003, p. 21-25.