Building a multi-plant metalcasting organization has been a long and careful process for Grede, the ferrous foundry group with nine casting operations and three specialty machining locations in six states, all serving automotive, heavy truck, and industrial manufacturers with a range of high-quality cast parts. Having achieved that scale, Grede undertook a significant digitalization effort for its casting operations, and the technology it chose to fulfill the plan is Norican Group’s Monitizer® | Discover IIoT platform.
Within four months of implementation, all the participating foundries reported reductions in scrap rates.
Serving the transport and industrial sectors, starting in 2020 the Grede organization made digitalizing production a central part of its strategy to improve operational efficiency and performance. “We’re moving from the art of the foundry to the science of metalcasting,” according to CEO Cary Wood. “Systems and innovation are critical to our success. We will use data and AI to take the variability out of our process to produce high-quality castings at lower cost.”
A real-time digital view. Monitizer is a modular IIoT platform designed to collect data from production equipment from any supplier, across multiple production lines or global sites. It aggregates, stores, and displays live and historical data through customizable, user-friendly dashboards and key performance indicators (KPIs.)
“The standard dashboards were built by people who know foundries,” emphasized Grede’s Matt Deyarmond, IoT Process and Control Lead. “They probably saved us over 80% on our set-up time. The system is simple to use and navigate, and it was easy to make minor changes ourselves.”
The real-time data and KPIs enhance process visibility and make it possible for Grede to react quickly and address any issues immediately. This superior quality of process control is driving major production improvements, according to the group.
Monitizer | Discover’s sophisticated alarm functions further enhance production control and support inexperienced users. If an issue needs attention, the system contacts different groups of people in different waves, sequentially, depending on how the problem develops, and whether the first alerted group reacts.
“If a machine runs outside its ‘green’ operating zone, the supervisor gets alerted,” explained Bart Hoemann, General Manager, at Grede’s St. Cloud foundry. “If it exceeds its control limits, it escalates to the quality manager. Exceed control limits five times and the plant manager gets notified.”
According to Grede, it selected the Monitizer IIoT platform because the system was built by foundry experts for foundries. Much of that expertise comes from specialists at Monitizer’s fellow Norican Group brands DISA, Simpson, Wheelabrator, StrikoWestofen and ItalPresseGauss.
“For us, Monitizer was an easy choice,” recalled Grede CTO Susan Bear, Grede’s. “It’s the only solution that has the AI piece – and Grede has a long, trusting relationship with the Norican team and its equipment brands. The Monitizer team is effectively an extension of our IT team and we trust their people completely.”
Grede found the secure system simple to use and navigate. “I can click into the plant dashboards wherever I am – in the office or on a plane,” she said. “We can deep dive into any one of our foundries, drill down into, say, sand compactibility; or step back and look at our corporate view to instantly see how all the plants are running.”
Process visibility drives improvements. “One of our foundries used Monitizer’s information to cut scrap by 50% by reducing sand inclusions. And, of the foundries that are live with Monitizer, 100% of them report scrap reductions.”
Once all the foundries are IIoT-connected, the Grede team will move to project phase 2. This will include AI optimization with Monitizer | Prescribe.
“In a green sand foundry, there are up to 2,700 different variables. You can’t control all those using spreadsheets,” explained Mike Meyer, v.p. of Operational Excellence at Grede. “Prescribe’s AI can help us understand how they work together and control them much more effectively. We’ll basically be digitalizing the experience we’ve gained over 30 years of operations.”
Improving a foundry’s bottom line means producing higher-quality castings at a lower cost. Grede’s work with Monitizer proves that expertly-deployed digital is the best way to make that happen.
“You need full C-suite commitment for this kind of project,” according to Wood. “You must build the culture, show the benefits, and take everyone with you. And you need the right technology and supplier. We had a vision of how we wanted to support the business. Monitizer is delivering it for us.”