Maintaining top operational efficiency in a foundry is no small feat. Complex processes and heavy machinery that operate within a foundry must work together cohesively in order to produce high-quality castings. This enormous challenge likely found you searching for ‘how to form a foundry maintenance strategy’ – that’s where we come in!
Here at
Omega Sinto, a leading manufacturer and installer of foundry plant equipment, we understand how challenging a foundry maintenance strategy is to organise and implement. So, we wanted to supply this article, offering a step-by-step guide to developing a robust foundry maintenance strategy that is proven to assist your operations.
You will gain insights into the foundational types of maintenance strategies, why optimising your foundry maintenance strategy is important, and discover the latest tools and technologies that can help take your foundry maintenance efforts to new heights.
Types of Maintenance Strategies
Whether you are a seasoned foundry manager, or somebody who is new to the field, you likely have a rough idea of the basic maintenance strategies you can implement into your operations.
Let’s recap the main types of maintenance and when you’re likely to need them.
Preventative Maintenance:
Preventative Maintenance is a regularly scheduled inspection of your foundry to prevent breakdowns from occurring.
Reactive Maintenance:
Reactive maintenance is a foundry maintenance strategy that is performed after a failure occurs – often working to resolve damaged equipment quickly and get your foundry back up and running.
Predictive Maintenance:
Utilising the latest technology, predictive foundry maintenance is a strategy that incorporates data and technology to predict when maintenance should be performed.
Why Should you Form a Comprehensive Maintenance Strategy?
Now that you understand the basic strategies you can implement into your foundry maintenance, it’s time to discuss why you should implement such strategies. The key here is availability. As leaders within the market, we frequently see foundry’s struggle to be available when clients need them the most due to various maintenance issues.
Don’t believe us?
Case studies conducted (Madanhire, I & Mbohwa, C. 2015) showcase the same results, suggesting availability is critical if you wish to survive the competitive foundry market, as export orders must be processed and completed quickly.
Forming a Comprehensive Foundry Maintenance Strategy
Forming a comprehensive foundry maintenance strategy involves a mix of all the foundational strategies listed above. Here is a time-frame of what that should look like:
Daily/Weekly checks
Depending on your resources, you can complete basic daily/weekly checks on your foundry equipment. This includes:
- Determining your foundries oil levels
- Checking for any abnormal sounds, vibrations, smells or any loose bolts and screws
Your daily/weekly maintenance checks should also include a routine clean to ensure the safety and longevity of your foundry equipment. This primarily includes clearing up sand, shot, powders, granular products and metal slags.
Omega Sinto have made foundry cleaning easy with our
portable, powerful and compact vacuum that can reduce cleaning costs and time. Using our vacuum to clean up your foundries, alongside the general checks listed above, is a form of preventative maintenance.
Monthly/Quartely Checks
Again, whether you conduct monthly or quarterly checks should depend on your resources. Monthly/quarterly checks include a more rigorous preventative inspection of your foundry.
These usually require a professional to visit and inspect your foundry equipment. Omega Sinto offer an affordable and efficient
foundry maintenance service, where we offer worldwide expert advice on all technical issues.
Reactive Call-Out Service
Despite completing the checks above, anomalous and unexpected issues can arise. So, it is best to establish a swift and effective process for addressing and fixing these issues. To develop a reactive maintenance plan, you should:
- Develop an easy-to-follow response plan
- Certify your employees are properly trained to fix basic issues
- Monitor and document your daily/weekly and monthly/quarterly checks
- Seek out a company that offers an emergency call-out service, like Omega Sinto
Predictive and General Maintenance with Omega Connect:
You should also consider including a predictive maintenance facet to your foundry maintenance strategy. As stated, predictive maintenance uses data and technology to accurately predict when maintenance should be performed. If this process sounds daunting to you, it’s important we mention that Omega Sinto customers have access to our
Omega Connect service, which assists with predictive and all other aspects of foundry maintenance.
Omega Connect is a web-based monitoring solution, which can elevate your foundry maintenance strategy. Omega Connect allows us to monitor and alter our equipment remotely from anywhere in the world. So, what does this mean for you?
- Ability to access the real-time view of all Omega Connect equipment.
- Real-time alarm monitoring
- Remote monitoring provides quick access to the production status and aids in fault discovery
- Allows for fast responses when issues are recognised, minimising downtime
References:
Madanhire, I., & Mbohwa, C. (2015). Enhancing maintenance practices at a casting foundry: case study. In Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering (Vol. 2, pp. 1-3).