Increasing Cast House Throughput through “In-Spec First Time”

Abstract

Achieving in-specification melt analysis first time has been the Holy Grail of many cast houses for a number of years and for a good reason. For many producers, the furnaces are the bottleneck of the value added casting process and removing that hurdle means big dollars. A six sigma project was carried out at the Bell Bay smelter aimed at reducing the time it takes to bring a furnace within chemical specification and highlighted that “in-spec first time” is more achievable than many think. This paper covers the steps having an impact on alloy recovery and suggests a “best practice” to be followed in each area. As is shown, consistently following these guidelines through robust controls can generate a significant increase in throughput of value add facilities in your cast house.