Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for foundry component manufacturers.
A checklist built from how foundry component manufacturers work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Customer part and pattern register
- Melt and heat log
- Mould and pour records
- Fettling and finishing
- Inspection and test certificates
- Machining routes and outside processes
- Dispatch and invoicing
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For owners
- For melters
- For moulders
- For fettlers
- For quality staff
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Casting yield by part and grade, against the estimate
- Heats tapped with spectro result and rejected lots
- Defects by type, match plate and moulding line
- Core box list with shot count and wear repair due
- Annealing and machining lots out and due back, by vendor
- Customer complaints traced to heat and flask
- Orders by customer with dispatch status
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- SMS
- Spectrometer result import
- Accounting export
- Barcode labels
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Can it follow a casting back to a single heat?
- Does it hold customer-owned patterns?
- What happens when a customer revises a drawing?
- Can we price a casting before we have a pattern?
- Can it print a test certificate for each lot?
- How are rejected castings handled?
- Does it handle heat treatment or painting done outside?
- Can the lab upload spectrometer readings?
- How is pricing decided?
- Who looks after the system afterwards?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Patterns are not matched to the revision
- Melt chemistry is separate from the casting
- Yield is guessed
- Machining and fettling hide the rejection
- Customer tooling is lost in the shop
Prefer to talk it through? See the foundry component manufacturers page.