Fall River Foundry Rises from the Ashes.

Following a destructive fire, this copper-alloy caster is moving to quickly get back on its feet with top-notch equipment and improved process flow.

Nobody expects a tragedy to occur. They can only deal with the resulting consequences that are handed to them. For Fall River Foundry, a green sand copper-alloy plant in Fall River, Wisconsin, disaster struck in the form of a fire last year that destroyed millions of dollars worth of infrastructure and equipment. For Fall River, this tragedy provided an opportunity. Although the devastation of losing half of its production capacity meant the possibility of losing customers and business, the foundry also was going to be able to reinvent itself and follow through with the expansion and modernization plans it had always put off either because of a lack of time or economic uncertainties.

Though the damage to the facility was heavy, rebuilding on its current site was the best option for Fall River. This article details the planning strategies, management decision-making process and some of the steps taken to ensure that the foundry's reconstruction optimized its financial resources, working space and vision to increase its leadership position in the copper-base jobbing industry.

Disaster Strikes

The fire at Fall River occurred on September 8. Investigators speculate that it was caused by a ceiling-mounted space heater used to temper the air in the foundry's core storage. Due to an evacuation plan that was practiced twice a year, all 90 employees escaped from the burning building unharmed. The facility, however, did not fare as well. Due to 30-mph wind gusts on that September day, the fire, which took seven fire departments to battle, spread to the facility's roof (Fig. 1). Because of the extreme heat the fire generated, the plant's electrical feeds were destroyed. In terms of casting equipment, the foundry lost:

* its four 3000-lb electric melting furnaces and their panels;

* 23 core machines;

* support mixers:

* scrubbers;

* conveyor lines for its automatic molding machine;

* its sand system and baghouse;

* a shell sand silo;

* heat exchangers;

* its water system.

The fire had wiped out its high-volume, automated molding line, and, in all, 45,OOO sq ft of the foundry was damaged. Its shorter-volume manual lines, which are housed under the same roof but sectioned off from the automatic line, were unaffected by the fire. All that remained on the high-production side of the foundry was the frame of the automatic molding machine and a cavity for an automatic pouring system that had been built in early July. Patterns and core tooling also were spared.

Strategic Planning

Through the years, Fall River management had established plans for major upgrades and installations, but due to hectic schedules and an uncertainty of where the economy was heading, it was often conservative with the rate of progression. "We're constantly updating the facility," said Vice President of Operations Brennen Weigel. "We've always had a game plan as far as the equipment we wanted." In addition to building the cavity for its automatic pouring system, Fall River recently had installed a new shakeout conveyor and hydraulics on its automatic molding machine, and upgraded its sand system. "While the fire was being fought, the staff was standing outside putting a game plan together," said Weigel.

The morning after, Weigel sat down with the foundry's insurance company to review its policy. "We were concerned as far as what was covered. In addition, from a business interruption standpoint, we were worried about losing customers and the effect the loss of capacity was going to have on our business," he said.

The insurance company did a walkthrough of the facility, appraised everything that was lost in the fire and made a final determination of whether it was smarter to rebuild or purchase new equipment. From a business interruption standpoint, they looked at how long the automatic, high-production side of the foundry was going to be down vs. buying new equipment, in which case it would be back up 3 months ahead of schedule. It was decided that buying new equipment was the more cost-efficient option.

Fall River's insurance allowed it to take charge of the reconstruction, and Weigel immediately began contacting vendors in order to research various technology options. "We wanted the latest and greatest available, and time was of the essence," he said. "With most equipment, you're looking at 12-16-week lead times. We needed the majority of the equipment here by the end of the year."

Though Fall River management had a vision of its "ideal foundry," questions still were raised concerning what equipment needed to be scrapped and what could be rebuilt. Fall River had several one-of-a-kind core machines that were built in-house, prompting them to strip the machines down and rebuild them.

According to Weigel, when most foundries are designed, engineering and research is relied upon heavily, and the process can take well over a year. Fall River designed its "new" foundry in less than 2 weeks and performed a lot of the engineering "on the fly" without any major modifications.

Since two building sections were to be constructed (the main bay for the melters and molding machines, and the core room), designers quickly computed square footage requirements. Another consideration was how much capital the insurance would have to cover and how much the foundry would contribute from its own pocket.

Management held firmly to a budget created for the rebuilding (Fig. 2), which broke down all departments and how much it would spend on each. "We have a cost analysis that we worked on with our insurance company, and we tried to work within those means for equipment replacement," said Weigel. According to Weigel, when a foundry is rebuilding, they're not only buying a piece of equipment but also the labor that goes into installing that equipment. A rule of thumb is to add 30-50% of what you're paying for the piece of equipment for installation. Another recommendation is to take everything into consideration when replacing equipment with insurance companies, even down to the hand tools. Keeping good records on facility listings and replacement values and reviewing them every year is a good way to make sure you are well compensated for what could be lost if such a tragedy occurs, he said.

Resourcing Castings

One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome in a situation such as Fall River's is dealing with customers who have come to expect on-time delivery of castings. "Our sales department immediately contacted customers, told them what happened and assured them that we would keep their products going out as quickly as possible," said Weigel. "We told them 'If you continue with us, we will do the expediting. We will figure out how to get your castings made.'"

In order to follow through on its promise, management knew it would require help from other foundry sources to meet customer needs, and many foundries contacted Fall River following the fire to offer help. Management identified foundries all over the country and conducted research on their molding facilities, sand systems, core capabilities and ability to handle small- and large-volume jobs. 'We were very selective as far as which jobs went where," said Weigel.

Some of the foundry's automatic molding work was moved to its manual lines, which in turn, forced much of the previous low-volume manual work to the outside. Weigel felt those jobs would be easier since there are few automatic brass jobbing foundries that could produce the volume Fall River does.

Increased Lead Time--By the time Fall River contacted other foundries, prepared a list of orders and shipped its patterns and coreboxes, 2.5 weeks had passed before it started receiving product back, The foundry, which normally runs a 2-week lead time (4 weeks with machining) and various just-in-time jobs with its customers, was being forced to run 12-14-week lead times and put its customer relationships in jeopardy. Fall River provided regular updates on product status and assured customers that things would soon be back to normal. "If we had a customer with a dire need to meet a contract that involved a part from us, we'd pull the work back in-house and run it out right away or try to reschedule with the foundry doing it to have them run it first," said Weigel. "We were able to react to customer needs." The result was that Fall River lost only one customer during the rebuilding.

Another setback in meeting casting orders was coordinating deliveries. Whereas Fall River normally receives an order for 10,000 castings and ships out the same amount all at once, outsourcers were sending orders back to the foundry in various quantities. "They didn't understand that we don't ship partial orders," said Weigel. "It's just a mindset of how people run their business."

As a solution, Fall River had the resourced rough-blasted castings shipped back to them, allowing it to clean, inspect and ensure that their customers were receiving a quality product.

Resourced Pricing--At first, Weigel expected outsourcers to take advantage of Fall River's situation and price their work excessively or go after their customers directly, but they were understanding and fair. "No one wants to be in the same situation as we were," he said. "I'm sure it opened up everybody's eyes and made them think 'What would happen if our facility burned down?'"

Although other foundries charged more than Fall River was used to, Weigel understood their reasoning. "You initially have to cover yourself in the jobbing industry because you may start up with a job and run excessive scrap," he said. "If it's a job you're going to run only 3-4 times, you must be able to recoup that cost. You have to figure in scrap, short runs and sampling, rigging charges, and any rejections." These added costs in purchasing its castings, though, were not passed along to its customers. Rather, they were covered through Fall River's business interruption insurance.

Core Outsourcing Options--With 23 core machines and a scrubber that were scrapped due to the fire, Fall River outsourced its cores to four independent core shops. The foundry was able to contribute with spare machines, rebuilding a couple of high-production machines and bringing the new in-house machines online as they arrived.

According to Weigel, the decision to outsource cores or finishing depends on how much a foundry is damaged. If the entire facility burns down, the entire casting requires outsourcing, he said. "You must ask yourself, 'How much do I, as a foundry, really need to complete that function myself? How much control do I want?'" Keeping some work in-house reduced the amount of exposure Fall River had to other foundries, he added.

Over the course of the rebuilding, Fall River sourced work to 14 U.S. foundries (mostly in the Midwest), making up for 50-60% of its jobs. To retain the other 40-50%, this brought about several changes in the foundry, including:

* adding a second shift on the manual lines to help keep up with the additional job orders forced to this side of the foundry;

* cross-training automatic line workers on the manual lines;

* melting half of its usual 200,000 lb/day because of the loss of high-volume jobs.

Foundry Revitalization

In its rebuilding, Fall River took advantage of the opportunity to start from scratch and reengineered the entire facility with the intention of improving production flow efficiency. "When you try to put equipment in an existing facility, you must compromise somewhere because of space restrictions or flow complications," said Weigel. "Because we were basically starting fresh, we decided not to compromise anywhere."

The new building's infrastructure cost Fall River $6.5 million and purchased equipment (not including installation) totaled $7-8 million. An additional 10,000 sq ft was added to the facility, which included an increase in ceiling height from 20 to 46 ft, the elimination of all penthouses and making all work areas as accessible as possible to eliminate small areas that would be inconvenient to its maintenance department.

In the melt department, an automatic pouring system expanded capacity with a 12,000-lb channel holding furnace with stopper rod. An air-conditioned control booth for the system operator also was installed. The foundry's sand and metal lab also was upgraded with the purchase of new testing equipment.

The coreroom was rearranged to allow for a direct feed into a climate-controlled core storage area. This time around, roof-mounted heaters and dehumidifiers were installed. Process flow in the core area now benefits from cores being fed into the core storage, which feeds an automatic molding line that is directly across the aisle. An overhead door positioned behind the machines that produce larger cores allows the foundry to feed the cores to its manual lines. High-speed batch mixers using small carts to transfer the sand to the molding machines speed up mixing as well as eliminate sand sometimes sticking to a conveyor. A new sand silo was arranged so that it could feed directly into the foundry's larger core machines, allowing its smaller machines to pneumatically transfer the sand. Also, because of the harsh winters in central Wisconsin, a sand heater was purchased that is capable of elevating sand temperature from -20F (-29C) to 80F (27C).

The modernization also spurred an unplanned improvement to the foundry's sand system as its storage capacity was increased from 70 to 110 tons, and a 30-ton tempering bin was brought in as a $250,000 upgrade out of the foundry's own pocket.

According to Weigel, the biggest focus in the rebuilding was networking for communications and transferring real-time information into the office for production control. New controls and monitors on the molding lines, core machines, mixers and water system, along with temperatures on motors and climate control units, will vastly improve the quality control of the operation. A big obstacle looked to be debugging the molding machine, which had its hydraulics altered to increase flow rates, but test runs "went off without a hitch," said Weigel.

Outside consultants helped Fall River install a heating ventilation/air conditioning system that not only cools its furnaces but also completes 28 air turns/ hr in the melting and molding areas.

After filling up a facility with larger, "big-ticket" equipment, Weigel recommends double- and triple-checking layouts to ensure all of the smaller, possibly "over-sighted" equipment is accounted for. This includes equipment such as ladle carriers, support equipment for operators, hand hoists, and material handling and storage items.

Fall River was forced into upgrading its facility, but Weigel feels that a foundry can accomplish what his has no matter what situation it may be in at the time. An important aspect to look at is what your overhead will be when starting up again and determining whether or not it measures up to the price to produce a casting, he said. Also, keep in mind your operating costs when upgrading your equipment. In Fall River's case, several facets of the operation were made to run more cost-efficiently, but it still will have to run for at least a quarter to see where its costs shake out.

Back to Business

With its infrastructure in place and all of its equipment installed, Fall River's biggest obstacle still lies ahead--startup. "To get everything working in sequence is a major undertaking," said Weigel, who planned on making the first pour in late March. "1 foresee a month of working out the engineering kinks before we're running smoothly."

Though there still is a long list of things to do before startup, including bringing patterns and cores back in-house, and sampling and testing the molding machines and sand system, Weigel is confident and excited to see Fall River back at full strength. "We've always had an efficient foundry," he said. "Now we've got a nice package to show off. The foundry will be our best sales tool."

Fall River Foundry

Fall River, Wisconsin

Casting Data: Brass (red and yellow), bronze (manganese, silicon, aluminum & tin) and copper-nickel.

Core Capabilities: Coldbox, warmbox, shell and nobake.

Mold Capabilities: Green sand.

Melting: Coreless induction

Value-Added Capabilities: Machining (Fall River Mfg., Milwaukee)

Markets Served: Water meter and plumbing.

Employees: 90.

Year Established: 1953.

1999 Shipments: 16 million lb.

Top Staff Officials: Raymond Weigel, owner/CEO, Brennen Weigel, vice president of operations; Scott Sitken, group sales manager; Kelly Weigel, production manager; Scott Robbins, foundry superintendent; Todd Collins, quality control manager.

Department                                  Expense
Building construction                    $3,108,900
Plumbing                                    367,000
Electrical                                  468,000
HVAC and pollution abatement              1,342,000
Data communication wiring                   130,000
Furnace water system                        245,901
Furnace equipment                         1,577,735
Autopour update                           1,130,000
Automatic molding update                  1,297,040
Sand system                               1,412,000
Core machines
  Shell process                             548,000

  Coldbox                                   612,000
  Warmbox                                   428,000
Coreroom sand system (mixers, pneumatic
transporters, gassing system)               987,000
Total Expenses                          $13,653,576
Note: Pricing includes installation cost.