The benefits of on-machine probing: German foundry achieves greater throughput and economy without loss of accuracy or quality

摘要

Ernst & Landerer GmbH is a family-owned company that has established an enviable reputation supplying castings to leading manufacturers of automotive gearboxes. The foundry has 80 employees and aims for this figure to rise slowly, with a focus on optimum product quality while maintaining the company at a manageable size. Established as a pure aluminium chill-casting foundry more than 40 years ago, its customers come from the automotive, medical, mechanical engineering and construction industries; and whereas they originally sought unfinished raw-steel parts, they now require machined castings that are ready to install. As a result, machining was added to complement the casting process at the turn of the millennium - and it is now the largest part of the company's business. Ernst & Landerer currently runs 22 Haas machining centres on a two-shift basis, with some 30-40% of the parts produced going to gearbox manufacturers - high-precision components with j6 tolerances, H6 for diameter boring and micron variances in rectangularity and parallelism.