Challenge
A Midwest ferrous foundry had experienced historic high levels of damage to castings, labor costs, and inefficiencies of placing castings in tubs prior to blasting. It was determined that that multiple points of handling castings and/or placing into tubs, combined with loading the blast cabinets had a large impact on the damage, as well as the configuration of the cleaning room was creating inefficiencies.
Approach
General Kinematics developed and presented, in conjunction with the blast manufacturer and GK representative, Metcast Service, a layout which localized the cleaning room, provided “soft” loading and unloading of castings into the blast machines, and provided options for more flexible inspection and processing of the castings.
Solution
Developing drawings of the layout incorporated into the customer facility, General Kinematics provided an indexing blast load feeder to provide a central point of feeding two Metcast 34 cubic foot blast machines. The blast cabinets each fed onto a two-way feeder which, in turn, discharged to three processing lines. Incorporated into the blast machines were shot reclaim conveyors to provide a more effective and reliable collection and screening of shot.
Results
The system was provided on-time and met customer objectives of increased efficiency and reduced damage. The customer has been encouraged to move forward with plans to incorporate features and of the cleaning room from General Kinematics and Metcast to two other plants at the facility in the near future.
About General Kinematics
General Kinematics Corporation, incorporated in 1960, was established to market, design, and custom fabricate innovative vibratory materials handling and processing equipment. Today the company is one of the world’s largest suppliers of vibratory processing equipment, holding more than 200 worldwide patents, and is acknowledged as a major contributor to the technical advancement of vibrating equipment design and application. Today, over 50,000 General Kinematics units have been installed in virtually all of the world’s industrialized countries. For more information about General Kinematics products and services, visit the company’s website at www.generalkinematics.com.