When you are choosing an investment casting company for your business, it’s critical to find the right one. The right investment casting company can be the difference between success and failure.
Choosing a right investment casting company can make your project run much more smoothly and efficiently. Considerations when choosing an investment casting company may include the range of materials they are able to work with and investment cast on a routine basis, their pricing structure, and how committed they are to communicate with your company.
Time Considerations
If your business is like most, speed is an issue. Faster production means you can deliver more goods or services at a higher rate and generate more profits. While it is not always the case, you often will want an investment casting company that can deliver your parts in a reasonably fast time frame without a drop in quality. Typically, your investment casting manufacturer should be able to produce and deliver high-quality casting parts in less than four weeks.
Capabilities
You may prefer a company that can handle a wide range of volume in production cycles, from about 500 parts to 25,000 or more. You also want a company that can add value to your parts, such as powder coating, quality machining, plating, painting, and/or assembly.
Materials
You may only be interested in one type of metal for your investment cast parts, but a company, like CFS Foundry, that is able to work with a variety of metals can give you more options. Certainly, at the very least, you want an investment casting company with a lot of experience with the type of metal you need for your parts. A company that is well-versed with many metals is worth considering as well.
Cost
Naturally, a good price point is important. But it’s also important to balance the need for quality parts with the need to save money. Investment casting is not a place to cut corners or try to shave money from the budget. A poorly-designed part can cost you much more in the long run. You should have a sense of what good prices are for investment cast part manufacturing and get the best deal you can, but you must make sure you are not sacrificing quality by doing so. Many part prints or models do not fully reflect the requirements or expectations of the customer. Items like porosity testing, leak testing, sanding of parting lines, cosmetic needs must be defined, or else most investment casters will quote without these operations only to find out that you need these and then raise the unit price after you are tooled up with them. Upfront honest discussions with your investment casting company will save you money in the long run.
The simple fact is that most of the time, the longer an investment casting manufacturers have been in business, the better off you are going with their services. CFS Foundry can deal with all types of investment casting parts with OEM services, contact us for your project now for a free quote!
