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Applying the Principle of the 7-Is to Improve Technology Transfer

Thomas E. Prucha

Vice President Technical Services


American Foundry Society
Schaumburg, IL. USA
Email : tprucha@afsinc.org
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ABSTRACT
Many of you are probably very familiar and probably
practicing the teachings and principals embodied in the
Kaizen Continuous Improvement approach that is often
called by the term 5S. The activity is called 5S
because the Japanese and English terms: Seiri (sorting),
Seiton (setting in order), Seiso (systematic cleanup),
Seiketsu (sanitizing) and Shitsuke (sustainable discipline);
describe a method and approach to implement order and
discipline into the workplace to eliminate waste. We have
many challenges facing our industry and these include
demands and constraints on our valuable human,
intellectual, financial and temporal resources. It is our
responsibility as good stewards to maximize and not
waste these resources for the benefit of our industry,
society and future generations. That is why I thought it
was important to relate what I call the 7-Is of a
successful research and technology transfer program.
The author will discuss outline how each of these 7-Is
(Involvement, Investigation, Innovation, Implementation,
Improvement, Integration, and Informing) are used to
improve technology transfer. Like the philosophy of
Kaizen, it is intended to bring discipline, clarity and
reduce waste; but also offer a pathway to get the fruits of
our work implemented into our industry.
Keywords:
Technology
transfer,
Involvement,
Investigation, Innovation, Implementation, Improvement,
Integration, Informing
INTRODUCTION
Many of you are probably very familiar and probably
practicing the teachings and principals embodied in the
Kaizen Continuous Improvement approach that is often
called by the term 5S. The activity is called 5S
because the Japanese and English terms:
Seiri (sorting), Seiton (setting in order), Seiso (systematic
cleanup), Seiketsu (sanitizing) and Shitsuke (sustainable

discipline); these describe a method to implement order


and discipline into the workplace to eliminate.
In preparing for this presentation, I reflected on the
challenges facing our industry. We have many demands
and constraints on our valuable human, intellectual,
financial and temporal resources. It is our responsibility
as good stewards to maximize and not waste these
resources for the benefit of our industry, society and
future generations. That is why I thought it was important
to discuss with you today my thoughts on what I call the
7-Is of a successful research program (Table 1). Like
the philosophy of Kaizen, it is intended to bring
discipline, clarity and reduce waste; but also offer a
pathway to get the fruits of our work implemented into
our industry. I will discuss why I think each is important
and show examples of how these have been applied to
metal casting research in North America.
Table 1: Principal
1
Technology Transfer

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

of

the

7-Is

to

Improve

Involvement,
Investigation
Innovation
Implementation
Improvement
Integration
Informing

INVOLVEMENT
The first and most important I is Involvement. For any
project to be successful it must have the active
participation and interest of many parties that represent
such different roles like the Investigator (university or
private researcher), the funding source (private sector,
trade association, government), technology users like the
metal casters and their suppliers (equipment or material)
and perhaps even the users of the castings produced
taking advantage of the new technology to improve their
products or services their offer their customers. We have
found that research developing technology that has no

interface with these communities, monitoring or support


from them, will have a very low probability of being
embraced and implemented.
So how do we get
involvement? At AFS (American Foundry Society) it
starts with our Technical Committee structure (Table 2).
This is a group of almost 800 individuals, who participate
on a voluntary basis, in technical committees that meet 34 times a year and are organized around division structure
of specific technology, process or metal or discipline
focus.
TABLE 2: TECHNICAL COMMITTEE INVOLVEMENT

Technical Committees
Develop concepts and projects to meet needs of
our members, industry and society
Promotes industry needs to the Division
Leadership
Division Council
Assures AFS committee structure that is strong
and vibrant
Reviews and ensures that adequate resources are
available to address their needs
Interfaces with the AFS Board of Directors
Provides feedback and guidance to the Technical
Committees
o Focus on Industry needs
o Aligns activities with AFS Mission
Statement and Strategic Plan
o Approaches to meet those goals
Research Board
Evaluates proposals for funding against the
identified and prioritized needs: AFS Technology
Development Plan of each Division
Provides feedback to the Division and their
Technical Committees

10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & SAFETY


LOST FOAM CASTING
GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS
HUMAN RESOURCES
MARKETING/MANAGEMENT SERVICES

Each division is responsible to access the needs and


interest of its members and that segment of the industry
and formulate a Research and Technology Deployment
Plan that will set a vision of what work needs to be
investigated and conducted to address those needs. This
one was prepared by the Engineering Division (Figure 1).
The mission of the Engineering Division is to advance
metal casting manufacturing by providing sound technical
support in the areas of:
- Design and development
- Process and system improvement
- Facility and operations management
The Engineering Division exists with the goal of
improving the safety, cost, quality, process reliability and
lead time of foundries through modeling, training and
facilitating technical innovation and engineering best
practices.

This is the current breakdown of those technical divisions


(Table 3). As you can see, the structure is broken down
into either: work disciplines or skills, metal types, process
or area of focus. Under each one of these divisions are
various technical committees that focus of specific topics,
like research, casting process, quality, etc.
FIG. 1. EXAMPLE OF DIVISION 1 RESEARCH PLAN
TABLE 3: TECHNICAL DIVISION STRUCTURE

1.

ENGINEERING

INCLUDES PATTERN & FOUNDRY


TOOLING (FORMER DIV. 7), ENERGY

2.
3.
4.

ALUMINUM
COPPER ALLOY
MOLDING METHODS AND MATERIALS

5.
6.
8.
9.

CAST IRON
MAGNESIUM
MELTING METHODS AND MATERIALS
STEEL

INCLUDES INVESTMENT CASTING 4L

To facilitate their mission, they will continually perform


projects and programs to educate the foundry industry. In
these efforts, their committee structure should aim to
provide structured research programs to improve
technology, innovation and communication of foundry
practices and methods. Our 5 year research plan will
announce what research ideas the division are
contemplating pursuing as well as follow ups on existing
research programs.

You can see just some of the topics that are of interest to
those members, but most are improvement focused. I will
discuss a couple of these as examples of how this 7-I
approach is assisting us.
INVESTIGATION
So next we move to the Investigation Process, which first
involves the steps to develop, propose and the conduct
research that addresses the needs as expressed in these
various Technology and Research Deployment plans of
your key interest groups, like our technical committees.
The researcher must seek the involvement of industrial
partners on their project monitoring and steering
committees, also their participation via either monetary or
in-kind to support the project efforts. That is why we
have participation by many university members on our
committees to listen to the Voice of the Customer and
craft projects that meet their needs.
Before our AFS Research Board will select a project,
even one that has very good technical merit, They judge
this participation (involvement) and ask: Does the project
have a steering committee representing industry selected?
Have they demonstrated their interest and support of the
need to conduct this work via letters of support, offers of
monetary backing or in-kind support like material,
software, and the use of their facilities to assist
conducting the work? Besides the technology being
developed, we look at these projects as a platform where
the Next Generation of metal casters can experiment and
learn their craft. Below is an example of students activity
involved in conducting project work either at their
university lab or at a manufacturing plant (Figure 2).

INNOVATION
But we also must be careful not to constrain and stifle
Innovation. We encourage the researchers to think
Outside the Box; dont just try approaches that allow for
only incremental improvements, but also attempt gamechanging solutions.
The investigators should seek opportunities in other
sectors and disciplines, not just metal casting or materials
to help advance our technology Such an example was
the interface by Dr. Ramrattan at Western Michigan
University with Prof. Joyce of the WMU Paper Products
Department on a project where we in the investigation of
understanding and improving mold and core coating we
looked to that industry to see how they managed coatings.
We found to improve, that the foundry industry needs
quality assurance tools to properly characterize refractory
coatings. To date no published work had demonstrated a
correlation between the traditional Baum control of
coatings and casting dimensions or surface finish. The
paper industry has a sophisticated set of standard test
methods used as quality control tools at the mill to
characterize and measure properties of many multipurpose coatings. This project explored the applicability
of these tests to the foundry industry.
We discovered new evaluation tests that were more
sensitive and informative than the traditional Baume test.
We also ask that they learn from what has gone before to
build, dont just discard the approach because it is old but
also dont be afraid to try something new, Figures 3-7.

FIG. 3. COATING PENETRATION


Surface Tension

FIG. 2. STUDENT INVOLVEMENT IN PROJECTS


FIG. 4. SURFACE TENSION

FIG. 7. MOLD AND CORE COATING PROJECT

FIG. 5. % SOLIDS AND LEVELING INDEX

Thermal distortion of sand molds and cores is a critical


problem in controlling finished cast part specifications
and quality. Coatings are used with sand molds to
alleviate this problem; however current technologies for
measuring refractory coating thickness suffer poor
reproducibility and do not allow for adequate process
control, leading to early coating failures, poor surface
quality, and lack of dimensional control resulting in the
inconsistent quality of cast pasts. Internal surface defects
are consistently attributed to large variations in coating
thickness and limitations of the application methods on
coated cores.
The AFS Sand Division estimates
approximately $60 million is spent on labor, energy, and
scrap to control metal penetration defects in castings.
This situation is most serious for short production runs
where adequate quality control is critical for on-time
delivery of quality components.
IMPLEMENTATION
We must remember that the Investigation and Pursuit for
Technological Advancement, while a worthy activity, is
not the End Game.
To be considered a success you must have the technology
implemented and being used. Technology Transfer is not
a One-Way Street. It is not just presenting a paper or
lecture at a conference. Technology transfer requires a
collaborative effort between the researcher and end-user.

FIG. 6. THERMAL DISTORTION TESTING

One of the ways we tried to determine how successful the


projects and resulting technology we are sponsoring are at
being implemented and being used by our members was
to recognize and reward those examples of technology

transfer. In the past we have given a Howard Taylor


Award for the Best Paper given at a past AFS Casting
Congress, but we felt this only focused on technical
merits but we realized that technology transfer doesnt
end with a paper published in a journal or presented at a
congress. We must see it being used to improve our
members operations. So we established the Applied
Research Award, symbolized by the knowledge contained
in that book pouring off the page and into a crucible to
create a cast product (Figure 8).

commonly used. The emphasis of this award is on


practical research that directly addresses pressing
technical problems faced by metalcasting facilities and
the speed with which this research is transferred into shop
floor applications. It is understood that successful
technology transfer requires not only the work of the
researcher but also a company that is willing to
implement new technology. Thus the nominee can be the
Principal Investigators/Research Organization, an AFS
Member Company/Individual who was instrumental in
helping to develop and practically apply the technology or
both.
IMPROVEMENT
To succeed and sustain as an industry, we must improve.
The research that sponsor and fund must lead to
improvements in our:
Quality Levels
Predictive Properties
Material Properties
Environment for workers
Energy demands and usage
Sustainability
Economics - Profitability

This section may include subheads. Do not indent


paragraphs. Use body text style as shown below.

INTREGRATION
The technology must be integrated into the way we do
business. We must embrace it and have it become an
essential tool and not just an interesting curiosity. To
succeed

FIG. 8. AFS APPLIED RESEARCH AWARD


The goal of the AFS Applied Research Award is to
recognize and reward the Principal Investigators and
metalcasting organizations involved with AFS funded
research projects where the research has been effectively
transferred to the metalcasting industry, is being actively
applied on the factory floor and providing demonstrated
value.
Technology is the key to a competitive future for
metalcasting, but only if the technology is practical and

FIG. 9. AFS CORE VENTING DESIGN


CALCULATOR PROJECT
The flowing project, developing a core venting design
calculator is this type of approach (Figure 9). The work
required a combination of detailed measurements to

determine the types of decomposition products, rates of


gas generation and estimated pressures along with
fundamental studies and development of mathematically
based simulation model. This as shown in the following
slides predicts the formation of gas and if the venting
paths are adequate to allow go harmlessly to atmosphere
or to create gas bubble defects in the solidifying casting.
We tried to make a tool that a gating engineer could use
without having to run a sophisticated model, but just
simple geometric inputs.

For the gas generation that was being observed, above is


the critical area and dimensions of that core (Figure 11).

The project required involvement from several AFS


Technical committees (1F Process Design & Modeling as
the lead committee, 5R Ductile-Gray Compacted
Graphite Iron Research Committee, Division 4 Molding
methods and Materials and Division 2 Aluminum) along
with General Motors validating of the pyrolysis model
against the Al casting condition char front position
measurements , several foundries supplying cores and
testing the model and the researchers Alchemcast
conducting gas measurement studies and Andrei Starobin
developing the model and calculator.
FIG. 12. CVDC CALCULATOR INPUTS
This is the Isoset water jacket core for an aluminum block
that was used to test the model and also conduct those
char front validation studies at GM (Figure 10). The
initial work has already been published in the AFS
International Journal of Metalcasting last summer.

FIG. 10. ISOSET WATER JACKET CORE Starobin, Goettsch, Walker, Burch, Gas pressure in
aluminum water jacket cores, International Journal
2
of Metal Casting, Summer 2011

FIG. 11. CRITICAL CORE DIMENSIONS: TOP


VIEW, BOTTEM VIEW, SECTION 1-1

This is an example of the inputs into the calculator,


including the general shape of the core, the mean core
thickness, the surface area of the core, the print diameter
(critical for acting as a vent or gas flow path) and the
maximum flow distance to the print (Figure 12).
What is also need is some understanding of the filling
profile of that mold cavity and when metal covers the core
completely (Figure 13). Once metal covers the core it the
gas that gets generated for the core decomposition
products only has two paths; through the metal or into
some type of vent path. If it goes into the metal it is not
necessarily a problem as long as the bubbles are small,
have time to rise and escape out of the solidifying metal.
When the viscosity of the metal decreases to a point that
the bubbles get trapped, and then you can get gas void
defects.

FIG. 13. MOLD FILL CURVE


FIG. 15. CVDC GRAPHIC OUTPUT PRESSURE
GAS AND METAL CURVES
It was determined that potential actions that could be
taken to eliminate this potential issue included placing
vent paths into the core (Figure 16). This is very common
practice for products like value bodies, where cores are
drilled out to give a pathway besides the metal for the
decomposition gases that are generated.

FIG. 14. CVDC ADDITIONAL INPUTS


Additional input parameters required for the model and
calculator include: core orientation, the casting fill time,
casting submersion time, time from submersion to cavity
is filled and the casting height above the core which
develop s the metastatic head and pressure (Figure 14).
This shows both the input window for the CVDC and the
graphic output which shows if gas pressure will exceed
the metal head pressure and at what point of filling the
cavity. As can be observed the yellow line for Gas
pressure exceeds the metal Pressure (dark line) at around
15 seconds into the filling until around 30 seconds(Figure
15). This means that gas bubbles can be created entering
the molten solidifying metal.

FIG. 16. VENT PATH IN CORE


New input parameters were then determined for this
vented core design and inputted into the model and
calculator (Figure 17).

FIG. 17. REVISED INPUTS FOR VENTED CORE

As can be observed, the gas pressure was dramatically


reduced with this approach of venting the core and core
gas pressure never exceeds the metal pressure with this
approach. This is observed in the graphical presentation
of the pressure curves, (Figure 18)

FIG. 19. CVDC PERFORMANCE


To further verify the predictive aspect of this calculator,
past work was benchmarked against it, as seen from this
study taken from literature (Figure 20).

FIG. 18. CVDC GRAPHIC OUTPUT REVISED


PRESSURE GAS AND METAL CURVES USING
VENTED CORE
To verify the modify, casting studies using real time hispeed cameras and thermocouples and other sensors
placed in the mold were conducted to verify the predicted
results with what was observed. We had very good
correlation on a complex core and system (Figure 19).

FIG. 20. TOP COPE SECTION AND BOTTOMDRAG SECTION WITH CORE, Naro, Pelfrey, Gas
Evolution of Synthetic Binders: Relationship to
Casting Blowhole Defects, AFS Transactions, 83-39,
4
pp. 365-376

FIG. 21. PUNB CORE GEOMETRY FROM STUDY


Shown above are the geometries of the core in that study,
(Figure 21). The information contained in that report was
inputted into the CVDC and the actual casting trial
compared to the calculator predicted results. Figure 22 is
an example of the types of inputs and comparison of
various types of conditions, also a comparison between
the predictive model and actual results.

FIG. 23. BLISTER CASTING DEFECT


As can be observed in Figure 24, this casting has a rather
large shell core and no easy path ways as currently
manufactured for venting these products. When these
simple hand measurements from the pictures supplied by
the foundry along with their pouring times and
dimensions off the samples parts received were entered
into the CVDC, along with an estimate for the
permeability of the shell core, the CVDC predicted an
issue with gas bubble generation. We inputted some
what if changes like varying fill time, core perm and
vent area. We found that changes to core perm and/or
vent path area could reduce to eliminate the issue. It was
suggested to the foundry to they try more active venting.

FIG. 22. CASTING TRIALS VS. CVDC


The real proof is demonstrated by testing the technology
against actual industrial settings. To prove it our further,
AFS received a request for assistance on a defect that was
being observed in this aluminum casting (Figure 23). We
felt when after examining the blister and defect
manufacturing information that was supplied, that this
defect might be caused by core gas decomposition
products.

FIG. 24. BACKGROUND INFORMANTIN FOR


EXAMPLE

INFORMATION - ILLUMINATION
Finally, we need to seek opportunities and venues to
illuminate and inform the entire casting industry so that
these advancements and improvement are more broadly
based and implemented. This can take many different
approaches and forms; from traditional conferences,
meetings and publications to trying new techniques like
webinars, like our Technology Transfer Thursdays (see
Figures 24 & 25) and the new social media opportunities.

These webinars have proved to be very popular, as it


offers another method to inform the membership about
the results of funded projects and get them involved in
implementing the technology to help improve their
operations. Below is another example, our International
Journal of Metalcasting (Figure 26), that we publish on a
quarterly basis not only in a hard copy format but also
with an online digital version via our Apple iPad/iPhone
and Android app.
I hope that you found todays presentation Informative
and Illuminating. And I once again thank you for your
gracious invitation and opportunity to speak to you and
remember, the key to success is Involvement.

FIG. 24. AFS TECHNOLOGY WEBINARS

FIG. 26. AFS- IJMC

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper is scheduled for presentation at the 71st World
Foundry Congress 2014, May 19-21, Blibao, Spain and
publication5 in the proceedings of the 71st WFC.
Permission to republish this paper has been kindly
supplied to the IIF by the World Foundry Organization.

FIG. 25. AFS TECH TRANSFER WEBINAR

REFERENCES
1.
2.

3.

4.

Prucha, Thomas, "7-I's to Improve Technology


Transfer", International Journal of Metal Casting,
Volume 7 Issue 1,Winter 2013, pp. 6-7
Starobin, Goettsch, Walker, Burch, Gas pressure in
aluminum water jacket cores, International Journal
of Metal Casting, Volume 5 Issue 3, Summer 2011,
pp. 57-64
Worman, Nieman, A Mathematical System for
Exercising Preventive Control over Core Gas Defects
in Gray Iron Castings , AFS Transactions, 73-23,
pp. 170-179
Naro, Pelfrey, Gas Evolution of Synthetic Binders:
Relationship to Casting Blowhole Defects, AFS
Transactions, 83-39, pp. 365-367
*** End of the Paper ***

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