The options are many, to choose foundry suppliers. Sources include visitors 'book, advertisements, magazines, buyers' guide word of mouth contact from other buyer and engineering personnel. The buyer must be always looking for reliable information about the various sources foundry supply and that suits the requirements of the foundry's capacity. This can be witnessed when a proper questionnaire is given to the prospective suppliers to get the required data from the potential suppliers. At time, foundries may not be willing to provide answers to the questions mentioned into the questionnaire. Even then, the buyer must insist for a valid data from the business, which is quintessential for continuing the business in the long run.
Once the source of supply is finalized, there should exist a mutual understanding between the foundry supplier and the buyer. Closer the relationship with the foundry, lesser will it look for inquiries from other suppliers. It is better to have a single good and trustworthy supplier instead of having too many dealings with many other sources. An agreement should be framed in such a way that delivery is also a part of the contract, which underlined the need for supplying quality castings to the buyer at an agreed date.
This kind of an agreement ensures the top management of the foundry with effective measurement of performance delivered. Components like quality, time of delivery must also be included wherein the supplier can be penalized in failing to delivering good quality or when there is a delay in supply. This would insist on better understanding between the buyer and the supplier.
Costs involved in foundry
Less assistance is available on foundry subject, since there is a wide range of metals cast and the casting processes involved. Regardless of the type and scale of foundry cost is classified into three components namely direct labor, materials and expenses. Materials are further classified into pig iron, scrap and alloying constituents and process materials - molding materials, paint, coke, sand, bonding agents, shot, etc. The expenditure will vary depending on the infrastructure available in the foundry and methods of costing.
Geometric complexity
Higher the geometric complexity, higher is the cost since the size of the mold increases with the increase in complex outer configurations. Cored castings cost more than the conventional ones. Additional cleaning and trimming is quintessential for cored cast components. The wall thickness is a significant feature in metal castings, since they let to form internal cavities when the external parts are manufactured
Type of metal
Cost of castings differ in the following three ways depending upon the alloy employed:
* Intrinsic value or cost of the alloy - In this, the cost is based on the cost of the underlying metal and the alloying elements of the alloy
* Purity of the alloy - alloys with lesser impurities fetch a premium from the foundries
* Castability of the alloy - for example, in aluminum and steel alloys, alloy composition are formed due to the difference in fluidity levels, castability levels and weldability.
Of the above three components castability plays a major role in determining the cost of the cast component.
