5 Essential Things for an RFQ of Precision Casting Products

Investment casting is also known as precision casting. This is a lost wax metal forming process that generally involves using a wax pattern surrounded by a ceramic shell to form a ceramic mold. Useful for complex designs and intricate shapes, precision casting produces net shape parts that have an excellent surface finish and a high degree of dimensional accuracy.

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When a company has a need for a precision casting product, it will submit an RFQ to various potential suppliers to obtain a written confirmation of estimated costs and timeframes. This article looks at what you need to know before submitting an RFQ for precision casting products.

What is an RFQ?

A Request for Quotation, or RFQ, is submitted when a company is in need of a partner to provide precision casting products. The requesting company has a good handle on the design specifications, and usually knows its design and budget parameters.

The RFQ spells out exactly what will be required. It asks any potential vendors to present a written cost quotation. The requesting company may send RFQs to several investment casting manufacturers, so that it can compare the cost, and lead time.

An RFQ is typically sent when a company knows exactly what it needs, and just wants to compare buying options. This process is usually also used if there will be a need for prototype sample parts.

5 Things to Know Before Submitting an RFQ for Precision Casting Products

Submitting an RFQ is an important way of transmitting information to potential vendors about your specific precision casting needs. It should explain exactly what is required, and document any unique needs. The goal is to provide clarity, which will prevent any potential misunderstandings. An RFQ will generally include:

• Part prints and specifications (raw casting and after-machining drawings and most importantly, to the latest engineering revision levels)
• Unique requirements (special processes such as heat treatment, surface treatment, specific types of testing requirements)
• Estimated annual purchase volumes
• Submission deadline
• Special certification requirements

When completed correctly, the RFQ process can serve to help manufacturers present their most complete cost quotation. Here are five things to know before submitting an RFQ for precision casting products:

1. How will the component be used? It is important for the precision casting manufacturer to be able to understand exactly how the end component will be used. Some components have less strict requirements than others, which could make them more cost-effective to produce. Components that will be used in safety-critical functions, on the other hand, will have much more rigorous requirements. Specify what kind of environment the part will be used in. If a component will be exposed to extreme temperatures, marine environments, or harsh weather, your precision casting manufacturer will need to take that information into consideration when presenting its cost quotation.
2. How much flexibility is there in your specifications? Know exactly how flexible you can be in your surface and tolerance specifications. Producing something exactly to spec can require a higher time investment from the manufacturer, thereby requiring a higher cost quotation. If there is some flexibility in your specifications, you may be able to benefit from lower pricing.
3. What type of metal is really required? Sometimes, a lower-cost alloy might serve the purpose just as well.
4. What is required after casting? Think about what heat treatment, machining, surface treatment, or testing processes need to be employed after casting to bring the component to a desirable state. All of these may add to your cost factor.
5. What do you really need? Be real in what you are asking in your quote. Don&#;t suggest a high quantity to get a lower per-unit cost, and then try to negotiate based on that price. Let the manufacturer know your exact deadline &#; don&#;t ask for a long timeframe if you really need the pieces delivered by a specific date.

Learn More About Precision Casting Products

Leveraging advanced equipment, techniques, and an ability to offer one-stop solutions, Impro is ranked among the Top 10 investment casting manufacturers in the world, according to Roland Berger&#;s report. This is, and will continue to be, our largest business segment. Catering to sectors ranging from the automotive, aerospace, hydraulic, industrial equipment, oil and gas , and medical industries, Impro provides a wide array of investment casting solutions to our customers. If you are interested in finding more information about submitting an RFQ for precision casting products, please contact our team of experts today.

Precision parts are a prize contract for any manufacturer, and something of an ongoing problem: there is the steady demand to maintain tolerances for size, gauge, performance, etc., and lately there is the challenge of fending off emerging technologies that promise more efficiency, more accuracy, etc. For producers of castings, those challenges have never been more relevant.

Casting Technology International Ltd. (Cti) is managing the challenge well. Cti developed the Replicast® process to overcome the quality and machining problems associated with sand-molded steel castings, and to avoid the carbon pick-up from polystyrene patterns in standard lost-foam processes. The developers&#; goal was to achieve the high standards of integrity, surface finish, and precision of lost-wax casting for larger and heavier castings than could be made with standard lost-wax technology.  This was achieved by replacing wax patterns with one patterns made from polystyrene (formed as a precise replica of a customer&#;s casting) on which a thin ceramic mold is produced. 

Cti, a British manufacturer of specialty cast products, developed and commercialized Replicast, and recently recognized the process could be applied for a particularly demanding type of cast products: impellers for heavy-duty pump systems Increasing pressure to improve the performance of such pumping equipment, and to reduce costly down time for the operators, established the opportunity to apply the novel casting process to produce on of the pumps&#; important component parts.

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Impellers are a crucial part of a pump&#;s overall efficiency, but ensuring their blades are perfectly balanced and provide a suitable surface quality, thickness and geometry to ensure a long service life, delivering maximum flow rates, is difficult to achieve using traditional casting processes. It is not unusual for blade thicknesses to vary, when impellers are made using sand molds and, although they can be dynamically balanced in air, that does not mean they will remain balanced during operation, when pumping a fluid.

Improving the surface quality of the impeller&#;s blades is also difficult, and expensive, because protective shrouds severely restrict access.

Besides producing precision castings, another Cti specialty is conduction process research to help casting manufacturers to solve problems and improve production. While it supplies high-value manufacturers with low-volume, precision steel, superalloy and titanium castings that would otherwise be difficult to source; it also provides advanced casting expertise, including computer process modeling, design for casting manufacture, casting process development, environmental, laboratory investigation, testing services and materials optimization. These capabilities are in addition to customized technology packages for all alloys and casting processes.

Cti has advanced the Replicast process so that it can produce impellers that have inherently challenging narrow passageways that are critical to a pump&#;s operation. As a result, the casting process can be used now to produce impellers that are correctly balanced, up to a meter in diameter, with high dimensional accuracy and superior surface finish.

According to the process experts, it seemed at first that the lower cost of impellers made using more common casting processes limited demand for Replicast impellers. However, that is changing following recent process optimization: the cost of producing the impellers has been reduced by around 30%, which is shifting the focus among pump users and manufacturers toward the total cost of pump ownership and &#;up time&#; (i.e., the time available in service, rather than in repair or replacement.)

According to Cti, at least one manufacturer is focusing now on a casting&#;s purchase cost, versus how much it costs them to buy a raw casting, process it, and install it in a pump. The switch makes Cti&#;s impellers far more attractive since they have significantly lower (even zero) non-conformance costs, require little or no "detailing," and far less finish machining, thanks to the near-net-shape process.

Because Replicast uses ceramic shells formed around sacrificial replica patterns, made directly from CAD designs using additive manufacturing technologies or machined from polystyrene, the accuracy of each casting is exceptionally reliable. Tests have shown that pumps using Replicast impellers are 10% more efficient than impellers made by traditional methods, which means pumps can be smaller, reducing material and manufacturing costs even further.

More than that, new designs can be produced in half the time it would take to produce a conventional wooden pattern, and design modifications can be made just as quickly. This means it is far easier to reverse engineer a product, using a coordinate measuring machine to collect the data to produce a CAD design from which the sacrificial pattern can be made.

&#;The oil-and-gas, chemical process, power, and water purification industries are all beginning to focus on total cost and realizing how financially damaging it can be to suffer any down time because of pump failures,&#; said Cti&#;s Richard Gould.

&#;We are also responding to demands for greener, more efficient pumps and rapid maintenance solutions by being prepared to hold stock and provide a replacement service that will exchange new and refurbished impellers for routine maintenance.&#;

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