This month's Casteel Commentary suggests that we should adopt changes to our commercial billing practices. Price volatility for supplies and long lead times creates a cash flow crunch. We frequently string out our suppliers to help float this cost. It would make sense to bill our customers in steps to help. This would also allow them to pay for the materials with surcharges up front.

Annual Meeting

This year's SFSA Annual Meeting is being held in Charleston, SC, September 6-9.

Western Division

The Western Division Technical & Operating meeting is scheduled for August 14-15 in Portland, OR. The program includes presentations on Large Diameter Air-Arc Power Source Availability Research, Foundry Dust Aggregation, Riser Feeding Aids, SFSA news, a roundtable discussion of business conditions, and a plant tour of Vancouver Iron & Steel.

Safety/HR Meeting

The next Safety and HR meeting will be held at Metaltek (Wisconsin Centrifugal) in Waukesha, WI on August 20-21. Contact Malcolm Blair for additional information or to register.

Eastern Division

The Eastern Division Technical & Operating meeting will be held August 26 and 27 in London, Ontario, Canada at AmeriCast London, Casting Division. The preliminary program includes presentations on B&L System at A.G. Anderson, Reduced Turns, Effect of Molding Variables on Surface Condition, SFSA news, a roundtable discussion of business conditions and a plant tour of AmeriCast London, Casting Division (formerly A.G. Anderson Ltd.)

Funding for Energy Saving Projects

The Demonstration of Energy-Efficient Developments (DEED) is a program that makes funding available for demonstration of energy saving technology, such as running a case study for energy savings in heat treatment. The member foundry must be serviced by a participating utility company, and that utility company must submit the application. The program encourages a collaborative effort between the utility, the company and other agencies. Frank Peters of Iowa State University (fpeters@iastate.edu) has offered to assist in the grant application process for a member foundry interested in conducting a heat treatment demonstration project. The DEED grant application and list of participating utilities is available on the Casteel Reporter web page.

Innovation

SFSA has been sponsoring work to model the development of hot tears in steel castings. Hot tears are the result of design; geometries that contain a restrained feature that solidifies late and is not continuously fed can crack. The casting rigging plays an obvious role in feeding and can have an effect on the restraint. One approach to avoid cracks is to add cracking brackets, fins across the crack area, that freeze earlier and are strong enough to avoid cracking. Another approach is to improve the feeding with taper or riser placement. Another approach is to reduce the restraint with either a change in design or to reduce the strength of the mold or core responsible for the restraint.

Specification Note

Test bars are not intended to determine the properties in our castings. Many customers assume that mechanical properties reported by the producer are characteristic of the casting and are surprised when they take test bars from our castings and do not get the same results. Test bars are used to determine the quality of the steel and not the properties of the casting. Pulling test bars allows us to see that the steel is not contaminated with an unanalyzed element and responds predictably to heat treatment. The casting has segregation, microporosity, and varying section sizes and these conditions affect the properties in bars from the casting.
One exception is A148 where the composition is left to the producer. This specification requires special test bars for heavier sections since the user has specified the properties only.

ITAR Compliance

All manufacturers, exporters, and brokers of defense articles, defense services, or related technical data, as defined on the United States Munitions List (Part 121 of the ITAR) http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/itar_index.htm are required to register with DDTC. Registration is primarily a means to provide the U.S. Government with necessary information on who is involved in certain manufacturing and exporting activities. Registration does not confer any export rights or privileges, but is a precondition for the issuance of any license or other approval for export.

Future Leaders

The first Future Leaders meeting was attended by 29 people. Attendees enjoyed a nice opportunity to network with peers and share a current innovation at their foundry. The meeting also included an open discussion with Tom Armstrong and John Kujawa, and a tour of the AmeriCast Atchison casting facility and machine shop. Future meetings will focus on sharing innovations, reviewing fundamentals and continuous process improvement. The next meeting will be held during the fall at Michigan Steel in Muskegon, MI. If you are interested in participating in the activities of this group, please E-mail David Poweleit at poweleit@sfsa.org to have your name added to the mailing list.

Please mark your calendars for the next Future Leaders meeting - Tuesday, September 30th through Wednesday, October 1st. Tuesday will be a full day meeting; thus, plan to arrive on Monday (dinner plan will be setup). Wednesday will include tours of both Michigan Steel and Eagle Alloy. Additional details on the meeting will be passed along as they become available. As a reminder, attendees at the last meeting decided that everyone would send in three topics to focus our full day session around (maybe some continuous improvement processes or discussions with a graybeard on why some process has always been the way it is). The meeting is not too long off; thus, we need to formalize our agenda.

Summary of Simulation Survey

1. What approach do you use to design rigging (gates and risers)?

Hand calculation	13
Experience	3
Software	9

2. Who is responsible for the design?

Foundry Engineer

(all)

3. Which computer programs do you use to design rigging?

Magma	10
Foseco	3
Solidcast	6
Procast	2
Ashland	2
Wincast	1
Flow 3-D	1
Pro-E	1
Solid Works	3
AutoCad	1
SolidEdge	1
None	3

4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the program?

Simple packages are easy to use and fast but may not have accuracy for demanding areas

Higher end packages require more input, more time, more computer power and must be customized for the plant but give accurate predictions

Quality	15
Yield	10
Training	3
Fewer casting iterations	7
Improved std practice	3
Sales tool	5

Cutting Large Risers Survey

1. How do you remove large risers?

Torch Cut	23
Powder Torch	3
Arc Gouging	3 (high alloy)
Saw	4 (mostly smaller "large" risers)
Magnesium Bars	1
Impact	3

2. Are you using natural gas, MAPP, or other gases?

Natural Gas	11 (Need a higher pressure source)
Propylene	7
Propane	5

3. What equipment does your process require?

Details distributed to the survey respondents.

Market News

Stainless steels and other high alloy products continue to be in demand with bookings remaining more than 10% up. Steel castings show some slowdown in activity but April is positive reversing the recent months' downturn. Steel shipments and iron and steel castings both show relatively strong growth in the past two months. On the negative side capital goods inventories are growing and there is little increase in orders or shipments. Commodity prices are causing a slowdown in the consumer economy but are sustaining investment in many of the capital equipment markets we serve. Added market news is available in the SteelGuru document on the Casteel Reporter web page.

Casteel Commentary

Volatile prices for energy and materials, long lead times, capacity constraints and increases in business levels have put a strain on many companies' cash positions. While eventually if the prices and business levels stabilize these cash flow issues will become resolved, they are a painful factor in managing a steel foundry.

In some ways this cash crunch is the result of our current business practices. We take an order for delivery in 8 weeks. In week 2 we receive and in week 4 we use the materials for producing the castings. The supplier bills us for the materials week 2 with 30 days (4 weeks) to pay. We ship the casting on week 8 and then bill with 60 day terms (8 weeks). We either stiff the supplier for some time using him to finance our sale or we suffer a cash crunch not receiving the cash for the process energy and materials billed in week 2 til week 14, 4 months.

One possible improvement would be to require partial payment for orders. If we collected 25% when the pattern is pulled and another 25% when the casting is produced with the balance due after shipment, then we would be in a better financial situation. The initial payment could include the surcharge and avoid some of the risk and uncertainty of the longer period from order to bill.

This would improve our cash flow, firm up our order book, finance our requirements from customers, and allow us to be good customers in times of allocation and short supply.

Raymond Monroe