Foundry Clusters Research Articles

Reinventing quality in foundry castings through gearbox housing optimization: A case study approach

The Indian Foundry cluster is a key player in the production of metal castings used across various industries, including automobiles, railways, machinery, sanitary appliances, pipes, gears, earth-moving equipment, cement, electric circuits, pumps, valves, and wind turbines. Grey iron is the predominant material, constituting around 68% of all cast parts. In this context, Kolhapur plays a pivotal role in the production of diverse castings in India, primarily focusing on grey iron and SG iron castings, both of which are ferrous materials. The Kolhapur Cluster of Foundries is expected to produce approximately 650,000 tonnes annually, contributing about 7% of India's total cast iron production. However, this cluster encountered challenges related to higher rejection rates for castings due to a variety of defects. One established foundry in Kolhapur faced stricter rejection standards for specific castings. To address these issues, a comprehensive case study was conducted to reduce rejection rates in this foundry. The primary focus of the study was on a specific casting, the Gearbox Housing, which had an initial average rejection rate of 13%. In some instances, this rejection rate spiked to as high as 18% in a single month, resulting in significant revenue losses for the company. The defects observed in Gearbox Housing castings were categorized into two main types: Methoding, Filling, and Solidification-related defects, which included issues like shrinkage porosity and hot tears. Sand and mold-related defects, such as sand inclusion, sand drop, and mold quality issues. The initial step in addressing these defects involved utilizing casting simulation techniques to analyze and tackle shrinkage and porosity issues. A new gating system was designed to enhance the casting process. In the subsequent stage of defect reduction, the Design of Experiment (DoE) tool was employed. This data-driven approach helped refine and optimize the manufacturing process to minimize defects and enhance the overall quality of Gearbox Housing castings. By implementing these strategies, the foundry in Kolhapur successfully reduced rejection rates, thereby safeguarding company revenue and ensuring the production of high-quality castings for various industrial applications.

A Study of Supply Chain Management in Foundry Industry with Special Reference to Kolhapur District

To Survive and thrive within an increasingly competitive market place and to succeed on sustainable basis, organization must adopt the new techniques and business models like supply chain management. A supply chain management consists of all the stages involved directly or indirectly in fulfilling the customer request. The supply chain not only includes the manufacturers & supplies, but also transporters, warehouse, retailers & customers themselves. Kolhapur is a leading foundry cluster, in providing quality castings to its customers majority of the foundry units in the cluster cater to the automotive sector along with other sectors such as pumps/valves, sugar, textiles, etc. Productivity is reduced due to the occurrence of defects in the foundry. These defects occur in various processes of manufacturing. The rejection percentage is not within the company standards in some places. The purpose of any business is to reduce supply risk at lower cost, provide timely delivery, increase customer service, the proper managing the flow of information and product with compressed cycle time and reducing overall operational cost. . Keywords: Supply chain, foundry ,process, defect free, procedure,policies

How Can the COVID-19 Crises Be An Opportunity to Reset the Iron Foundries, with Special Reference to Howrah Foundry Cluster

How Can the COVID-19 Crises Be An Opportunity to Reset the Iron Foundries, with Special Reference to Howrah Foundry Cluster

Contemporary and futuristic views of pollution control devices in foundries

Foundry practices are used in contemporary world to produce large volume of components and products. Foundry practices involve the melting of metals and pouring the molten metal into the cavities called molds. On solidification, the metals which assume the shape of molds are removed as castings. Foundries that employ these practices were growing in large number till the middle part of the twentieth century in the world. After the middle part of the twentieth century, the world community begun to realize that, foundries were emitting pollutants which were affecting the health of humans. In order to overcome this situation, several countries in the world promulgated laws stipulating the maximum level of pollutants that can emit by foundries. These laws affected the functioning and growth of foundries. In order to sustain amidst these constraints, foundries begun to install energy efficient melting technologies and pollution control devices (PCDs). In this back ground, this paper reports to assess the contemporary scenario and project the future needs for sustaining the foundries. During the conduct of this literature review, it was discernable that, research papers have reported three categories of researches. In the first category of research papers, the researches reporting the achievement of cleaner production technologies in foundries using PCDs have appeared. In the second category of research papers, the application of cleaner production technology in foundries located in different countries has been examined. In the third category of research papers, the application of efficient melting technologies and PCDs in different clusters of foundries located in different parts of world has been explored. Subsequently implementation technics of Environmental Management System in cleaner production technics in foundries has been described the analysis of the information and knowledge drawn from these three categories of papers has revealed that, researches exploring the sustenance of foundries situated in different parts of world are required to be carried out intensively in future. The outcome of these researchers will be useful to apply the cleaner production technologies that would be suitable for implementation in different foundry clusters to suit the different conditions prevailing with regard to the adoption of efficient melting technologies and PCDs.

Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Practices and its Impact on Productivity in Coimbatore Foundries

It is very essential to produce the cast components in foundries with high quality, reliable, consistent and at lowest cost. Hence the foundry owners have to introduce the Lean manufacturing to improve the productivity. This study brought out how technically qualified entrepreneurs of selected foundries have carried out technological innovations, mainly due to their self-motivation and self-efforts. Introducing the Lean manufacturing in the process and changing product designs, as desired or directed by the customers resulted in cost reduction, quality and productivity improvement. These have enabled the selected foundries to enhance competitiveness, grow in the domestic market and penetrate the international market and grow in size over time. And have achieved technological innovations successfully based on their technological capability and customer needs, enabling them to sail through the competitive environment. There are about 35000 foundries in the world with annual production of 90 million metric tons, providing employment to about 20 lakh people. Indian foundry industry is acknowledged as the worlds second largest producer of castings (7.4 Million Tons per Annum - MTPA) based on Tonnage during 2009, next to China (35.2 MTPA). There is a large gap between India and other nations, along with the fact that the foundry industry is not able to keep up with the local and international demand and to catch up in terms of absolute production quantities and qualities and hence the market share. Having reached this stage, what we need is to utilize the potential for growth in our favour. Indian Foundry Industry occupies a special place in shaping the countrys economy. India has around 5000 foundries, producing about 7.4 MT of castings worth Rs 20,500 crores. It ranks second in terms of casting production, next to China. These units are mostly located in clusters with numbers varying from 100 to 500 per cluster. Some of the notable clusters are Agra, Howrah, Coimbatore, Kolhapur, Rajkot and Belgaum. Coimbatore foundries have more export opportunities to tap with growth in the end user segment. Coimbatore foundry cluster has about 620 units and most of them are small-scale. They produce 40,000 to 45,000 tonnes of castings a month. The foundry product line of Coimbatore cluster is mainly catering to motor pumps, machineries and is slowly emerging to cater to valves and auto components sector from South India. In the last five years, output of the Coimbatore foundries has grown at 15 to 20 percent and it is estimated that Coimbatore contributes nearly 15 percent of the total casting production in the country. The total monthly casting production has gone up from about 25,000 ton in 2007 and in 2010 it is 60,000 ton. Almost 20% of the total production goes for exports (direct and indirect) to most of the European countries.

Demystifying MSA: a structured approach for Indian foundry SMEs

The purpose of this paper is to present the results from an empirical investigation of measurement system analysis, status in the Indian foundry SMEs and formulate an integrated approach for its successful implementation. A feasible survey questionnaire is supplied to units related to one of the vital foundry cluster and is suitable to small and medium scale Indian foundries. Further the result of the survey becomes basis for problem formulation. The paper not only un-wraps the critical reasons to implement MSA in SMEs but also generates an integrated frame work for deploying MSA comprehensively among foundry SMEs by not ignoring present constraints of Indian SME environments. Its practical implication has been analysed empirically by implementing structured MSA approach in one of the significant foundry of the Batal-Jalandhar-Samalkha cluster. Very rare research has been carried to relate the status of MSA in the Indian foundries and it will further provide value to academicians and Six Sigma practitioners.

06/01985 Energy intensity and economic performance in small scale bricks and foundry clusters in India: does energy intensity matter?: Subrahmanya, M. H. B. Energy Policy, 2006, 34, (4), 489–497

06/01985 Energy intensity and economic performance in small scale bricks and foundry clusters in India: does energy intensity matter?: Subrahmanya, M. H. B. Energy Policy, 2006, 34, (4), 489–497

Industrial clusters and technological capability in small firms: an empirical study of two foundry clusters in South India

Industrial clusters, by virtue of dense sectoral and geographic concentration of interlinked firms, are believed to have the intrinsic potential to be technologically dynamic and innovative. This paper explores the influence of various learning mechanisms on the acquisition of technological capability in small firms in industrial clusters through a field study conducted in two foundry clusters in South India. Empirical evidence gathered during 1999–2001 among 98 firms shows a strong relationship between technological capability and the various learning mechanisms that are believed to influence it. Secondly, the study also shows that acquisition of higher technological capability translates into improved economic performance of the individual firms in the cluster.

Collective efficiency and technological capability in small firms: evidence from two foundry clusters in South India

This study explores the influence of various learning mechanisms on the acquisition of technological capability in small industry clusters through a field study conducted in two foundry clusters in south India. It probes whether the collective efficiency through higher inter-firm linkages and cooperation with firms/agencies within a cluster as well as outside the cluster, leads to higher technological capability. Suitable proxies have been developed to measure technological capability and the learning mechanisms, thus facilitating quantitative analyses. The evidence suggests that collective efficiency, either in the form of horizontal cooperation or vertical cooperation, has a significant influence on technological capability. However, it is the factors like proximity to markets, nature of the cluster – homogeneous or heterogeneous, that appear to reinforce the kind of cooperative efforts, horizontal or vertical, that are more conducive to the acquisition of technological capability in firms. Therefore, the study has certain policy implications for small industry development in India.

Energy intensity and economic performance in small scale bricks and foundry clusters in India: does energy intensity matter?

This paper probes energy intensity and economic performance in small enterprises with reference to two energy-intensive small-scale industry (SSI) clusters in the state of Karnataka in India. Based on analysis of primary data collected from 38 bricks enterprises and 31 foundries, the paper brought out that there is a positive relationship not only between energy intensity and share of energy cost in total variable cost but also between energy intensity and value of output. But there is a negative relationship between energy intensity and factor productivities. Energy made a statistically significant contribution to economic performance in terms of returns to scale. Those small enterprises, which were less energy intensive, achieved higher returns to scale than those, which were more energy intensive. Therefore, it is imperative for Indian Policy Makers to include ‘energy efficiency improvement’ programmes as part of the strategy for enhancing SSI competitiveness.

The Foundry Cluster in Howrah: Socio-Economic Dimensions

The paper portrays an overview of a foundry cluster in Howrah, the plight of the unorganized workforce, and the prospect of the iron foundry industry in the years to come. An effort is made to understand the problems and prospects of the iron foundry units from within; and to study labour related issues, the origin of the labour class, the profile of the workforce, the characteristic patterns of the foundry units in Howrah, the working conditions and future prospects of the industry. Finally, the paper proposes a viable solution to the problems, through a partnership approach, facilitating a development dialogue.