24-10-2014, 10:10 AM
Abstracts: The foundry industry faces specific challenges with respect to economic and environmental sustainability & suffers from poor quality and productivity due to the large number of process parameters, combined with lower penetration of manufacturing automation and shortage of skilled workers compared to other industries. Challenges facing by foundry owners are defects in casting, shortage of workers, shortage of skilled manpower, Increasing labour cost, insufficient research, continued rise in prices of important raw materials like pig iron, steel scrap, low ash coke, ferro alloys. The ferrous foundry industry is highly energy intensive. Energy cost is almost 15-20 percent of the manufacturing cost and cost of energy in India is very high in comparison to other countries. Foundry processes require substantial energy, typically generated using fossil fuels; whether onsite or remotely at an electrical power plant. All above given challenges affects efficiency of any foundry.