With the rapid development of the industrial level, the demand for casting products from all walks of life is increasing, and the requirements are getting higher and higher. Casting products are required for not only high internal quality, but also good dimensional accuracy and surface quality. To mass-produce such highly consistent castings, modern casting equipment and technological requirements must be adopted.
Modern investment casting (silica sol process) is a low-cutting or no-cutting casting process. It is an excellent technology in the casting industry. What’s more, it is not only suitable for various types and alloys, but also has a wide range of applications and is. In addition, the dimensional accuracy and surface quality of the produced castings are higher than that of other casting methods. Even the complex, high-temperature resistant, and difficult-to-process castings that are difficult to cast by other casting methods can be casted by investment casting process.
However, from the introduction of the previous articles, it can be known that there are four major processes in silica sol casting (specifically, it can be subdivided into more than 20 processes). There are so many processes that require our technicians to solve each of the problems. To ensure the smooth production of products, one can imagine the importance of technicians to the foundry.
First, here is an introduction of the specific job responsibilities of the technicians:
1. Understand what customers need and formulate and improve casting process documents;
2. Carry out new product casting process development work to solve technical problems in the casting process;
3. Be responsible for casting mold design, equipment selection, production line establishment, raw material selection and performance verification, etc.;
4. Be responsible for technical guidance and quality analysis to on-site production personnel, assist the quality department to solve related quality problems, inspect and supervise production personnel to carry out production operations in accordance with relevant standards, processes, and specifications;
5. Carry out experiments with new processes and new technologies to continuously improve the quality of castings, reduce waste loss and reduce manufacturing costs.
Second, as a member of the technical department, I am mainly responsible for the following aspects:
1. Sample tracking
Contact the customer to understand the customer's product requirements (appearance, size, performance), carry out internal (outsourcing) discussions to determine the production process, and feedback the internal results of the discussion to the customer. After the development task is issued, carefully review the drawings, and then cooperate with ERP to assess the difficulty of the product in advance. Start to solve the problems that may occur in the future, and gain time for the subsequent processing period to ensure that the samples arrive at the customer on time. With the increase in the number of samples, more and more customers are contacted; I found that the requirements of customers are very high, so I can only ask myself to be more professional.
2. Compilation and distribution of standard documents
With the delivery of samples, all the process parameters of each process in the production process are recorded one by one, compiled into a standard document for the production of the product and distributed to each department. The production department and the quality department are required to strictly follow the standard documents. At the same time, it is necessary to improve the process in time based on the production, quality and customer feedback to reduce the occurrence of problems and improve production efficiency.
3. Development of new technology
Due to the many and complex product models, some products will cause problems, which not only affects the company’s production efficiency but also affects the customer’s product quality. Now the company’s leaders require us to simulate the casting of problematic and complex products in advance, which allows us to discover and solve problems in time. This not only solves the problem but also improves efficiency.
Most people may think that casting is a dirty, tiring and dangerous work. However, now the casting industry has greatly improved its automation with technological progress and management standards. With the application of industrial robots, AGV cars and the Internet of Things, there is no need for so many people on the scene in the entire foundry. What’s more, there is even an unmanned factory. But at the same time, the foundry is also very dependent on experience. Those old masters who have been casting for a lifetime in the foundry are treasures. Young people need to survive the loneliness in casting and follow the old masters to learn skills.
Casting involves a wide range of knowledge fields, including machinery, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, materials science, etc. The types of work involved can be divided into mold design and manufacturing, CAE, on-site process, casting site management, materials, and product design. One can choose a direction to work on based on one’s professional background, but at the same time one should have a basic understanding of other related fields.
There are also two positions in the foundry industry, casting process technology position and foundry management position. Some people think that casting technology is complicated, while some people think that management is difficult. Management is an art. There are many factors which affect the production of casting, such as labor, equipment, material, law, and environment, which are all not easy to control. As long as the management is excellent, the production process is relatively simple, no matter it’s the production of ordinary castings or energy-powered castings, in batches or single pieces. Mastering the soft power of management is also a direction of the development of the casting profession.
The casting industry has a long history of development, and I believe its vitality will continue for a long time. Even if rapid prototyping technology develops in cities, some large and complex castings and mass production are still inseparable from casting. Working in this kind of traditional manufacturing industry, one’s benefits increase with experience and qualifications, and will become more and more advantaged in labor market. Therefore, it is very promising for young people to learn casting. Let us all work hard for the development of the casting industry globally!