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Agile furnace solutions for a changing world


With regional foundry markets diverging significantly in their investment and production focus, driven by both changing end-user requirements and the impact of the global pandemic, how is StrikoWestofen ensuring its furnace solutions continue to meet all needs?
We talk to Senior Vice President at StrikoWestofen, Peter Reuther, to find out.

Hello Peter, thank you for joining us today. Perhaps you could start by giving us a quick overview of the key differences you are witnessing across your global customer base?

We are seeing a geographic divide emerging when it comes to capacity. For example, across our Asia Pacific customer base - especially in China - we are witnessing high demand for new equipment. Additional melting and dosing furnaces to support new lines. There are two major drivers here. One is the region’s significant focus on electromobility within the automotive sector, the second is linked to business consolidation trends. There has been a clear evolution away from smaller, independent foundries towards larger consolidated groups looking to up their capital spend – investing in equipment that will help them seize emerging opportunities in a buoyant casting market.

In Europe the focus is much more on optimizing existing capacity. On new solutions, software, control system and hardware upgrades that will help extend furnace lifespan and enhance performance, for instance in terms of reduced energy consumption or improved uptime.

What about the US?

In the US and Mexico, we are seeing a blend of both. An interesting aspect of this market is that many foundries are facing a tipping point. For some, equipment modernization packages do still provide an ideal solution for optimizing resources. For others, with a slightly older installation base, it makes more sense to skip a step and invest in ‘new’. Another quite interesting trend is that we’ve seen a number of foundries European foundry groups with a global footprint increasing their North America capacity.

Are these geographic differences also reflected in the demand you are seeing for your digital solutions?

Interest in and demand for our range of digital solutions has been on an upward curve over the last 12 months – irrespective of geography. It’s the precise nature of those solutions that varies, in part linked with location.

For example, demand for our Monitizer® | GLOBAL solution is highest in Asia Pacific at present. The platform enables foundries to access, aggregate and analyze performance and operating data from any piece of equipment from any line, and from site, in order to inform real time decision making and process improvements.

Why is demand for Monitizer® | GLOBAL highest in this region? It’s not simply because foundries investing in new facilities and production lines are more likely to ‘go digital’ from the off (though this is a factor). It is more closely linked to the fact that there is already a much greater familiarity with cloud-based solutions in these markets.

It takes time to think about data differently and as such, it is inevitable that adoption speeds differ. The key thing is that leveraging the benefits of digital solutions doesn’t required a giant leap. Big benefits can be achieved with small steps. And we’re helping foundries take these too.

Can you give us some examples of these ‘small step’ digital solutions?

Yes. Monitizer® | Refill Monitor is a good example. It too is cloud-based but the solution is specifically focused on optimized metal filling. It uses sensor data to continuously check furnace fill levels against the metal consumption of the die casting process. It then presents the analyzed data as informative online dashboards which clearly show when each furnace will need refilling, with which alloy, and the weight of metal required.

In addition to avoiding downtime linked to running dry or overfilling, this simple digital step also optimizes the traffic of liquid metal supply making the whole process much leaner, saving both time and energy. For foundries looking to optimize their existing processes and up output without increasing capacity, this is a valuable tool.

Another good example is our Part Load Efficiency Control (PLEC). Many Aluminium foundries around the world are not operating at 100% right now – 3 shift patterns have gone to 2 shift and so on. This can be problematic when it comes to melting due to the wasted energy associated with partial loads. The PLEC is a simple digital solution, implemented as part of the furnace control system, that automatically optimizes “melting” and “holding” operating modes according to utilization. Fundamentally, the lower the load the greater the potential savings. A big help for foundries experiencing production fluctuations. capacity, this is a valuable tool.

Refill Monitor by StrikoWestofen
StrikoMelter melting furnace

Aside from digital solutions, how else is StrikoWestofen supporting foundries focussed on optimizing their existing production set-up?

Training is an interesting area. It doesn’t matter how good your furnace equipment is, if your foundry team doesn’t have a detailed understanding of the processes involved; of the impact small adjustments to settings and controls can have etc., you will never get the best possible performance from machines. And this is an issue right now.

Pre pandemic there was already a noticeable skills shortage in the industry. With many foundries now also working with leaner teams, building and maintaining the knowledge base necessary to leverage maximum productivity from equipment can be a challenge.

As a result, uptake in our training packages has not stopped. Delivered on site or at our dedicated tech centre in Wiehl, Germany, (as soon it’s possible again) we offer a wide range of sessions to help production and maintenance teams get ‘under the skin’ of their StrikoMelter and Westomat furnaces in order to optimize energy efficiency, accuracy and ultimately to maximize uptime.

Complementing this offering, we’re also building out our free online library of resources and instructional videos which cover key aspects of equipment maintenance, cleaning and performance monitoring. In fact, we’ve recently developed a helpful guide on maintenance best practice that’s proving quite popular.

Have you had to adapt your service offering at all to meet changing foundry requirements?

For sure we’ve seen a shift towards our remote service offering – quite understandably given the recent restrictions on travel. But we were already well set-up for this development. In addition to our 24/7 hotline, we have a range of digital solutions that enable foundry personnel to remotely connect with our expert engineers via a tablet or smartphone, with bidirectional video and audio streams ensuring our technicians can see the issue and talk through solutions.

What are the most common service or technical support requests you are receiving?

It can vary dramatically – which is one of the reasons we have an engineering team with so much ‘foundry floor’ experience. Outside of troubleshooting ad-hoc technical issues, the theme of optimization continues. It’s all about foundries looking to see how they can get the more out of their equipment. We have a great deal of equipment modernization solutions, spanning hardware and software, to help with this.

I would say though that use of original spare parts is also a recurring theme. Drops in performance (especially linked to energy consumption), unusual wear or in some cases equipment malfunctions, are often tracked back to usage of a non-OEM replacement part. It sounds like such a small thing but as these are such highly engineered machines, even small deviations in part design can significantly alter performance. Even something as simple as using the wrong heating element in a Westomat dosing furnace can, if left unchecked, result in major damage to the refractory lining.

To avoid these scenarios, we make sure accessing the right replacement parts is as easy as possible and a fast process. We keep common wear parts in stock permanently to support this commitment and, in most countries, we are able to offer a one-day delivery.

Finally, have you got any new solutions in the pipeline for foundries that are looking to expand or invest in new furnaces?

The Westomat Plus+ is the newest addition to our line-up. We’ve been piloting it with one of our customers in Germany – Auto Heinen – and have now officially launched to European market. Asia and America will follow over the year.

As you would expect from a Westomat, it’s design is focussed on delivering high dosing accuracy (up to ±1,5%) with a high yield of high-quality melt, while also minimizing energy consumption. But it also has a few new special twists.

For example, its sub-frame is tiltable in any position. This, together with its unique oval design, makes the furnace much easier to clean and maintain. Crucially, it also fits a larger holding capacity into a smaller footprint which has major benefits for foundries in terms of space utilization.

What this, our existing product line-up and our digital, upgrade and service solutions all have in common is that they support resource optimization and high-quality casting. So whatever changes our customers might be facing, this is a constant they can rely on.

Contact us and find out how we can support you.