Growth on a Global Scale at Teksid.

By following the lead of its homegrown aluminum and iron casting headquarters, this foundry conglomerate stakes its claim as one of the world's largest producers of cast components.

When Americans think of Italy, images of Venetian gondolas, the leaning tower of Pisa and big bowls of pasta often dance in their heads. When that thought focuses on Italian industry and, more specifically, Italian metalcasting, that image, more than likely, shifts to Teksid.

As the metal components' company of the Italian Fiat Group (65% control) and the French firm Renault (35% control), Teksid has exploded onto the international metalcasting scene in the last two decades, expanding its reach from its headquarters in Turin, Italy, into the rest of Europe, the U.S., Mexico, South America and Asia as a supplier of iron, aluminum and magnesium castings. With a customer base comprised of the top manufacturers in the auto and truck industries--The Big Three, BMW, Volkswagen, Caterpillar, Toyota, Mercedes, Fiat, Renault and Cummins Engine (to name a few)--Teksid's philosophy has been to please the customers by supplying the cast components they want in as close a proximity to their manufacturing operations as possible.

But as Teksid continues to expand its reach and casting supply capabilities (including the recent announcements of a new $80 million lost foam greenfield foundry in Sylacauga, Alabama, and the acquisition of French carmaker Renault's foundry operations), leadership and strategies still originate in the motherland, often from the Carmagnola Aluminum and the Crescentino Iron foundry headquarters. This article examines the growth of the Teksid foundry group into today's foundry conglomerate and how its decision to follow General Motors (GM) into high-production automotive aluminum lost foam casting will reshape its future aluminum casting business.

The Birth of a Global Giant

With a name derived from the consolidation of "Technological" and "Sidilurgical (metallurgy)," Teksid was founded in 1975 when the Fiat Group decided to split its corporation into 11 different sectors. The metalcasting activity was originally made up of three captive foundries in Italy (two since have closed) that focused on iron and aluminum castings for trucks,

automobiles, and the naval and oil industries. Today, the foundry group has grown to 30 plants across the globe with $1.8 billion (U.S.) in sales in 1998.

"In 1975, Teksid made the decision to produce components for outside organizations," said Giuseppe Peretti, industrial director of Teksid's iron foundry division. "However, our customers want their suppliers near their manufacturing operations. As our customer base has grown, we obviously have needed to expand capacity. It has been in our best interest to meet our customers' needs."

From its three original foundries in Italy, Teksid now has plants (or stake in plants) in Italy, France, Poland, Turkey, the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, China and India.

In terms of ductile and gray iron casting production, Teksid states that it (and its affiliate foundries) will produce close to 1 million tons worldwide (70% gray and 30% ductile). According to Teksid, it produces 15% of the worldwide casting market share for truck cylinder heads and automobile connecting rods and front suspension arms, more than 10% of the worldwide market share for truck cylinder blocks and automobile steering knuckles, and more than 7% of the worldwide market share for automobile cylinder blocks, crankshafts and brake components.

Teksid's nonferrous production is based in magnesium and aluminum. The smaller of the two, magnesium, is focused in Teksid's stake in Canada's Meridian Technologies (a 51% Teksid and 49% Norsk Hydro joint venture), a manufacturer of die castings. Meridian has made its reputation as the only metalcaster producing automotive dashboard frames (420,000 pieces/yr) and seat frames (470,000 pieces/yr). The Meridian group, which also produces transmission components, has plants in Canada, the U.S. and Italy.

In terms of aluminum casting production, Teksid manufactures close to 200,000 tons/yr. It produces 11% of the world's aluminum cylinder heads and more than 3% of the world's engine blocks. For Teksid, however, its true growth in aluminum casting production will occur in the next couple of years as it continues to ramp up capacity and manufacturing for the production of aluminum engine cylinder blocks and heads for GM's L850 engine as part of that automaker's World Engine Program. In addition to GM's Massena, New York plant and Saturn's Spring Hill, Tennessee foundry, Teksid will produce the cast components in lost foam at its Carmagnola, Italy and Sylacauga, Alabama plants. According to GM, the L850 is one of the largest planned production of engines in history. The awarding of this contract to Teksid in early 1999 placed it on the cutting edge of aluminum casting production. Saturn and BMW were the only high-production lost foam caster in the world, and now Teksid was emerging at the forefront of that techn ology at its U.S. plants and its Carmagnola aluminum division foundry headquarters.

Carmagnola Aluminum

The increased use of lightweight alloys in automobiles has meant growth to the Carmagnola aluminum foundry. By utilizing the low-pressure permanent, semi-permanent and lost foam casting processes, this plant produces cylinder blocks, cylinder heads, intake manifolds, camshaft carrier housings, suspension arms and bed plates for the world automotive market. The plant is arranged with lost foam on the ground floor and permanent and semi-permanent mold on the second floor.

For the 1400-employee Carmagnola plant, the high-production venture into lost foam is a recent one. Until a few years ago, this plant consisted of diecasting (20,000 tons/yr), permanent mold and two low-volume lost foam lines (strictly for Italian customers). The L850 engine, however, also has opened its doors to engine blocks and heads, in addition to the automotive manifolds and other engine components it was previously producing. With the ramp up of the L850 program this year, this plant's lost foam production will grow from 4000 tons to more than 15,000 tons for 300,000 engine blocks and 60,000 cylinder heads/yr. In addition to the casting production, the contract with GM also provides for the exchange of information on materials, processes and products.

"In terms of lost foam, GM has positioned itself as the major worldwide supplier," said Massimo Fracchia, president and CEO of Teksid, Inc., Farmington Hills, Michigan. We believe, as they believe, that this is the future for complex aluminum parts. This technology agreement enhances our leadership position in the marketplace."

Designed in cooperation with Fata Aluminum, Turin, Italy, Teksid's lost foam lines (Fig. 1) run at a rate of 40-50 flasks/br, with two blocks or heads per flask. These components are cast in 319 aluminum poured at 1450F (771C). The rest of its lost foam components are cast in either A357, A319 or A356.

The reason the cylinder block and head castings will be manufactured in lost foam is because of the as-cast design features (engineered by Saturn Corp.) that this process allows. According to Saturn, the lost foam cast-in features on the L850 cylinder head could include: high-pressure oil lines to the hydraulic lifters and cam bearings; gravity oil return lines; combustion chambers; an integral lifter pedestal and cam journal; and a baffled water jacket. The as-cast features on the cylinder block could include: an oil filter mount; highpressure main and bearing oil feed lines; gravity oil return lines; water pump and thermostat housings; and a bore deck gasket flange.

To put these as-cast benefits in perspective, there is the potential for more than 14 ft of drilled holes to be eliminated from machining by casting these parts in lost foam, which equates to more than 16 cu. in. of aluminum not generated into chips on each engine.

Another example of savings on the cylinder head, according to Saturn, could be the oil galleys being cast hollow. On a typical cylinder head, the galleys are cast and then the openings are machined. As a result, a threaded plug and washer are required at a cost of $0.10-0.15 per opening to seal those openings to prevent leaks. On the lost foam cylinder head, only a cup plug at a cost of $0.00 I is required on the inside of the casting to prevent leaks. The cylinder head also could have a dam designed in the oil passage that holds oil after the engine cutoff to minimize air entrapment in the hydraulic valve during a cold start. The "peaks-and-valleys" configuration of the passage is nearly impossible to achieve in machining.

The semi-permanent and permanent mold portion of the foundry consists of 24 five-station carousel automatic low-pressure casting systems from Fata Aluminum (Fig. 2). These carousel systems perform automatic coresetting with either hotbox or coldbox cores, low-pressure pouring, and cutoff before passing the castings, via conveyor, to the shakeout system. The metal is melted via four 80-ton/hr reverberatory furnaces that launder the molten aluminum to pouring furnaces underneath the carousels.

The aluminum permanent mold castings are processed by a fluidized bed sand furnace system that combines shakeout and heat treat in one operation. The foundry then processes 98% of its cylinder head and block castings through a trim press operation, but supplies its customers with all their castings in an unmachined condition.

The Carmagnola plant is the foundation of aluminum technology development for the Teksid aluminum division. With the recent acquisition of Renault (and its more than 30,000 ton/yr of aluminum production), this statement is furthered because of an integration of technology. With Renault's work in high-pressure die-, squeeze- and sand-casting, Teksid now can produce components in all molding methods for aluminum. These capabilities will be optimized for Teksid's castings at Carmagnola and then distributed throughout the aluminum division.

"As with all our acquisitions, the Renault agreement was driven by customer demand," said Fracchia. "With our growth in Western Europe, we needed a quick response to our customer's needs."

Crescentino Iron

Focusing on the automotive and truck markets, the 1.1-million sq m Crescentino Iron foundry and its 1500 employees produce more than 215,000 tons/yr (82% gray and 18% ductile iron). The components it produces include automotive cylinder blocks (46% of production), truck cylinder blocks (17%), crankshafts (17%) and cylinder heads (6%). Its customers include Fiat, Iveco, New Holland, Ferrari, Toyota and the European Engine Alliance.

The foundry casts via three Spomatic green sand molding lines (two at 1000 x 800 x 300/300 mm and one at 1600 x 1000 x 450/450 mm) fed by two 45-ton/hr cupolas and three 90-ton induction holding furnaces. The foundry is ramping-up a new impact mold line from Heinrich Wagner Sinto to substitute for one of the Spomatic lines producing car cylinder blocks. Cores for all molding lines are produced via the coldbox and hotbox processes and are assembled via robotic automation.

The line 1 molding line's cores, which are used to manufacture heavy truck cylinder blocks, are produced and assembled into packages by a Loramendi Key Core system. The Key Core system consists of one line that produces the crankcase core and one line that produces the core for the water jacket. The other core packages are assembled using robotic arms that manipulate the individual core components produced on 17 different core machines through their wash and integrate them into a package for delivery to the molding lines (Fig. 3).

"Our success in engineering has allowed us to develop core systems that are built for our needs, instead of retrofitting existing systems to fit our needs," said Giovanni Fassera, Crescentino plant manager.

After semi-automatic pouring via computer/operator-controlled ladles, castings proceed through standard shakeout and either a tumble or carousel shotblast before heat treating (if required). As in the aluminum foundry, the iron castings are supplied to the customer unmachined.

For Teksid, its Crescentino iron foundry hasn't changed much except for automation and the new molding line since the plant was built in 1972. However, as with Teksid's aluminum division, change is in store. The continued shift from iron to aluminum for automotive components will force Teksid's iron division to fill its lost automotive capacity. Whether it is filled by the heavy truck or some unforeseen market, Teksid will continue to see a shift to aluminum in terms of total cast components produced because of customer demand.

For Teksid, this has been the theme of its global growth--meeting customer demands.

Teksid Group

Turin, Italy

Total Plants: 30.

Casting Data: Gray and ductile iron, aluminum, magnesium.

1999 Group Sales: $1.8 Billion (U.S.).

1999 Group Shipments: More than 1.2 million tons.

Casting Processes: Green sand, lost foam, permanent and semi-permanent mold, diecasting, semi-solid.

Founded: 1975.