Look outside the mold.

In this issue of MODERN CASTING, we recognize two different firms in our industry for challenging tradition and the stratus quo.

The first firm is John Deere Foundry. This captive metalcasting facility decided it needed to test its manufacturing capabilities. Despite its captive status, its customers (John Deere machining and assembly operations) also are demanding shorter lead times. While it typically quotes 15-day lead times, the plant new it could do better.

As a result, through cooperation between casting engineering and manufacturing, the firm challenged itself to produce a casting via traditional metalcasting production in 24 hours from release of the design. In reality, the firm achieved its goal in less than 12 hrs--from design, mold and core tooling, mold and core manufacturing, pouring, and cleaning and finishing, to inspection.

Did the plant stack the deck in its favor? No, aside from alerting the various areas within the plant and its outside pattern shop that the project was happening the day it did.

"We underestimate what we can do if we stretch ourselves," said Mike Kuebler, John Deere manager-quality, sales and service. "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."

Kuebler and his team were able to look at their existing capabilities (the status quo) and re-evaluate how they could be used better to meet their goal.

The second firm is Ashland Casting Solutions (formerly Ashland Foundry Products Div.). Known as a supplier of sand consumables to metalcasting facilities, in 2002 it restructured its focus and decided to go after a new customer base--designers and buyers of metal castings. Why would a supplier to metalcasters have any interest in it's customers' customers?

"Every supplier should understand their customers' customers. They should understand the extraordinary pressures their customers face and demands for low costs. In addition, every supplier must understand what value they can bring to metal castings," said Mike Swartzlander, general manager, Ashland Casting Solutions.

Swartzlander states that this belief has lead Ashland's transformation to a marketer for the metalcasting process and an aid for end-users in need of metal casting design help. According to Swartzlander, many of today's metalcasters don't have the capability or know-how to venture into the design realm. By stepping into this gap between design engineers and metalcasters, Swartzlander believes Ashland will be "stopping the disintegration of the value chain."

This supplier has decided that waiting for metalcasters to generate new business is not the way to go. His firm needs to take a proactive stance and generate business for the metalcasting industry as a whole, a portion of which will trickle down to its "core" business of supplying raw materials to metalcasters.

So, what can you learn from these two firms?

The number one lesson to take away is that we can't be scared to challenge what has always been done and change "tradition." Our industry is so proud of its past that we lose sight of the present and future. We must adapt at the same rate as our customers (or faster) to meet their challenges head-on. We must find solutions to our customers' problems be fore they ask. Why do so many metalcasters run their plants like they did 25 years ago? We shouldn't be running our plants like we did 25 clays ago.

The second lesson is that we have to take gambles to become great. Whether it is the vision/strategic focus for our firms or the new technological advancements we utilize, we have to continually push ourselves to reinvent what we offer our customers. While Ashland's change in name and strategic focus could fail, it has taken a calculated "gamble" because the firm knows that success on its new path far surpasses any future that could have been achieved on the previous path.

I am asking you to challenge the status quo. Whether you work on the melt deck or run the entire metalcasting facility, take a cue from John Deere and Ashland and take a calculated "gamble." It is time to shoot for the stars. Even if you miss, you will end up in the clouds.