Permanent Bar Codes Help Trace Cast Components.

Labeling specific data symbols into castings at the point-of-cast allows companies to trace their products from the birth of the mold through actual casting use. Cantwell Products, LLC, St. Louis, Missouri, makes the Cast-A-Code brand stencil--a sequentially punched data marking system that can place whatever barcode symbology onto or into the customer's part or components that the customer's reader requires and the materials and manufacturing processes allow. The data symbols become part of the casting after shakeout as a three-dimensional, non-destructible mark.

The process features a unique code punched out of a foundry millboard-type material. The punched stencil is secured into the sand mold with a general-purpose adhesive and recorded into a database before the mold is coated, sealed and poured. The stencil material then flakes off during shakeout, leaving the code intact and destroying the stencil to prevent the creation of counterfeit barcodes. Each code is permanent and individually traceable, allowing the entire history of the part or product to be retrieved upon a simple scan of the data symbols. The mark is the unique key to the database.

This cost-effective process allows foundries and customers to keep track of work in progress, establish a just-in-time manufacturing system and measure and improve the efficiency of operations and inventory systems. It also serves the customer by providing more efficient and reliable service after the sale. Caterpillar's Mapleton Casting Plant, Mapleton, Illinois, is currently implementing the stenciling system as part of its production line.