From Automotive News …
This blogger believes strongly in listening to the voice of the customer. Bob Hegbloom of Chrysler says he has listened:
The buzz in Detroit is that the lightweight aluminum body of the upcoming 2015 F-150 pickup will give Ford a significant advantage. Bob Hegbloom, chief of the Ram brand, isn’t buying it. After a lot of customer research, he said, “I don’t see anyone asking for an aluminum truck today.”
Later, in the same article:
Hegbloom acknowledged, though, that the Ram must shed pounds as the industry strives to meet rising federal fuel economy standards and customers’ desire for good mileage. “Do we have to lightweight our truck?” he said. “Absolutely.”
This
is interesting. The press for
lightweighting continues, and it will take several forms. Ductile iron and ADI should be included on that
menu of solutions.
Working with
Suppliers
In the same issue there is an article where GM CEO Mary Barra discusses having a more collaborative relationship with suppliers. The article mostly focuses on long term planning, but there was this tidbit:
Barra hopes that GM’s recent playbook of bringing larger suppliers into the vehicle-development process earlier and giving them more long-term certainty will begin to erase the skepticism. Already, it has given a few suppliers enough peace of mind to build facilities near GM assembly plants in Spring Hill, Tenn.; Kansas City, Kan.; and Arlington, Texas.
When
AP gives training seminars to engineers (like AP University) we often
state that designers and buyers should bring metalcasters into the design process
earlier for technical reasons. There is a LOT of money to be saved by solving
metalcasting problems before they happen.
That
said, there is a small problem … this is an illustration of the “seen and
unseen”, as described by Bastiat. If you
do it right then the cost of the extra core or the added machining operation or
the unwanted alloy never happens. It’s
another reason why buyers and designers should build meaningful relationships
with metalcasting suppliers. Also, being collaborative instead of being a bully
is just the right thing to do.
Holy cow,
in this single post we have now have discussed supply chain, Austrian
economics, the Golden Rule, and metalcasting training. The mind reels (at least mine does).
Last week’s AP University
Last week AP held the sixth session of the AP University casting design seminar. We hosted 29 people from a variety of industries like heavy truck, mining equipment, light vehicle, and others. We spent 2.50 days learning about casting design and casting conversions and metallurgy. A good time was had by all. We want to extend our thanks to our excellent friends who made guest presentations. Vadim Pikhovich from Magmasoft and Scott Case of Farrar Corporation both did a super job in supporting these training efforts.
The seminar includes a tour of Joyworks Studio in Ann Arbor, MI, where we did a demonstration of ductile iron production. Check out this video of the ductile iron treatment process:
Later on Justin poured a nobake mold of ductile iron:
And here is a photo of AP's John Keough explaining a casting tree to some designers:
