Knowledge-based manufacturing strategy and methods for foundries

The European foundry business is a traditional less RTD intensive industry which is dominated by SMEs and which forms a significant part of Europe´s manufacturing industry. The efficient design and manufacturing of cast components and corresponding tooling is a crucial success factor for these companies. To achieve this, information and knowledge around the design, planning and manufacturing of cast components needs to be accessible in a fast and structured way. This includes the knowledge on new materials, processes and equipment for the manufacture of castings. In contrast to other manufacturing sectors the foundry business has not yet implemented e-manufacturing technology on a large scale such as Decision support software, Computer Aided Process Planning and networking. This paper describes an approach to the systematic development of IT solutions based on collected information and knowledge. Besides the software tools an overall knowledge database has been established allowing multiple companies to optimise their processes as well as to share equipment when it comes to new processes and expensive machinery. These solutions were developed by a consortium of four RTD performers, five industrial associations and a core group of ten SMEs from four different European countries.