Ashland Foundry Products Division Invests in Quality Enhancement Upgrades
Dublin, Ohio (USA) – The Foundry Products Division of Ashland Specialty Chemical Company, a division of Ashland Inc., has begun a $1 million capital improvement project to install automated process controls and other upgrades for enhancing product quality at its Cleveland-East manufacturing plant. The facility manufactures a full line of refractory coatings and specialty chemicals for the foundry industry and isAshland’s leading producer for these products.
The first phase of the improvement project has now been completed with installation of a highly automated process monitoring and control system. This achieves precise ‘recipes’ by adding raw materials – known as ‘charging’ – to the processing mixers and controlling the mixing operations.
The system improves charging accuracy through accurate weighing and dispersion of the materials, and by ensuring that they are added at the proper rate. The computerized and user- friendly system also generates data for tracking the operations – valuable information that minimizes the need for batch adjustments and promotes first-time quality.
“Our customers' expectations on SQC and SPC for refractory coatings are becoming much more demanding as they themselves set more stringent quality expectations including, in some cases, Six Sigma programs,” said Michael W. Swartzlander, vice president and general manager, Foundry Products Division, Ashland Specialty Chemical Company. “Ashland has a long history of developing and introducing higher quality to refractory coatings; for example, leading the industry conversion from pastes that required mixing at the foundry, to ready-to-use slurries. Adding these state-of-the art capabilities to our manufacturing processes is a natural extension of our commitment to making refractory coatings more predictable and useful in the foundry," Swartzlander said.
The Foundry Products Division manufactures and sells foundry chemicals worldwide, including sand-binding resins systems, refractory coatings, release agents, engineered sand additives and riser sleeves. It serves the global metal casting industry from 38 manufacturing and distribution locations. For more information, contact Ashland Foundry Products Division at 614-790-3514 or visit the web site at www.ashspec.com/fp.html.
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