From Inception to Completion…A Process Control View For The Lost Wax Process -- Wave Of The Future

摘要

In our current economic climate, organizations continually strive for lean and efficientoperations. Certain companies are required to look at areas for lean improvement in adepartment/area, so that the company can benefit from the lower cost by delivering the sameadded value to the customer. However, it can be a challenging endeavor identifying certain areasof opportunity for improvement. As my fellow brethren from the 55th Annual TechnicalConference ICI Expo, Mr. T. Allen Bransford once quoted "Rule of Competition..."Companieswith the highest quality products and superior service would in the long run, beat thecompetitors, winning the marketing war, and becoming the most profitable." So how can weachieve/strive to succeed in any manufacturing industry with our most common issues thatoccurs on a periodic basis? Process Improvement through Process Control is the most useful wayof improving processes through our manufacturing industry. The Investment Casting industrywith different applications whether it's aerospace, commercial or military still retain numerousvariables for process control and will keep increasing by continuously improving on theprocesses. Take what you can control and control what you have produced in a manner such thatprocess consistency plays a huge role for a given variable. Isolate the major problems and createsystems for control for a given metric. What are some of our "Kryptonite's" that we facecontinuously in this industry until certain systems are developed and implemented for processimprovements? Scrap, rework, production planning, raw process material verification,inconsistency in process, training our workforce to shipping are all areas that need to beoverlooked and controlled. But how can we do all this and still maintain certain levels of control?