Simple Solutions That Work! Issue 15

obstacle race, with the casting team trying to keep a metal delivery to match the no-bake mold output. This was compounded by the fact that pouring on the carrousel had moved the action from waist to chest height. The foundry couldn’t immediately remove the green sand line, though that was the ultimate intention. What the men could deliver to the carousel wasn’t allowing it to reach its full potential, especially with regard to pouring larger castings, Acetarc was brought in to provide a molten metal handling solution. Our task was to link all four furnaces to the three pouring positions so that metal transfer could be accomplished safely, quickly and in larger quantities that was currently possible. Our solution was an overhead monorail with lines travelling to all points and a central turntable linking the pouring lines with the furnaces. Small geared ladles would replace the crucibles. It would enable the safe and quick transfer of metal, from any of the furnaces to any of the pouring points. It removed the potential hazard of split metal and enabled larger amounts of metal to be fed, especially to the no-bake line. Raising and lowering of the ladle was now to be done via a manual chain block, cutting out all the manual lifting. As fork lift truck access was very limited, and with an eye on the installation, careful Continued on next page A routine quickly developed, we would turn up at the foundry just as they finished casting on the Friday noon and we would vacate on late Sunday so they could resume production on Monday. A security guard would check us in and out but it didn’t take long for this to evolve into us being given the keys on Friday with the responsibility of locking everything up and dropping the keys off in a secure box when we left on Sunday. Any long-established building develops its own ‘spirit of place’ and this foundry was no different. For many years it echoed to the sound of men going about their daily work, and more than a few prayers and curses were probably said along the way (“Oh god please let this work, bloody thing won’t work.”) Although quiet at the weekends, it was never silent. The background noise was a ticking of hot metal cooling, punctuated by the occasional sound of leaky hydraulics or a pneumatic system losing pressure, and, it had to be said, the occasional sound of rats. It was like the whole place was relaxing for the weekend, getting ready for Monday morning. design of the system kept all the steelwork and monorail down to a manageable weight for installation. The positioning of the support columns had been done to minimize their impact on the daily operation of the foundry. The tricky part of the job was having to carry out the installation without disrupting production in the foundry, which we addressed by spreading the installation over several long weekends. This is why we were using a separate installation team rather than our own people. It wasn’t the most efficient method but it got the job done. CASE STUDIES 9