The problems with iron
foundries in China
The iron foundries are also known as iron casting
workshops, which manufacture iron and steel
castings. Many overseas buyers and purchasers always
try to find the suitable iron foundries in China, so
they can buy good iron castings from them. However,
they do not know there are many problems with those
foundries.
As my years experiences in Dandong Ruiding Foundry,
I sort the iron foundries in China to four types.
The first type: Large foundries. These foundries own
over three automatic molding lines, and can produce
over 10000 tons iron castings per year. The second
type: Middle foundries. These foundries own one or
two automatic molding lines, and other casting
processes, such as resin sand, manual green sand
etc. The annual production is from 3000 tons to
10000 tons. The third type: Small foundries. These
foundries do not have automatic molding lines, but
have some molding machines or just manual green sand
casting process. The fourth type: specific
foundries. These foundries just produce one or two
specific products.
What are the problems with these foundries?
As for the large foundries, since they have many
auto molding lines, so their production efficiency
is very high, and the casting quality is very good.
The problems are they can not make large castings,
or heavy castings because of the size limitation of
the sand boxes. In addition, they can not make some
castings with special dimensional or structures
requirements. Moreover, they are not willing to
accept small orders. Therefore, most of these
foundries will only produce the automobile parts.
As for the middle foundries, since they have
automatic molding lines, and have other casting
processes. They can meet many different demand. The
problems are their technical abilities are limited,
and their production costs are high. Why? These
foundries were developed from traditional casting
workshops, so they just start to use automatic
molding line, therefore, their old engineers can not
reach the new technical level. In one word, their
old engineers did not know how to use the automatic
molding lines. They are staying in the studying
stage. At the same time, these foundries have to
feed many engineers and administrative staff since
they have many different workshops, and each
workshop has different production processes. So,
they production costs are higher than small
foundries. According to the opinion of Mr. Galen
Wang from Dandong Foundry, these foundries will
develop into large foundries or small foundries in
the future. The middle foundries are not a long-time
stable stage.
As for the small foundries, since they just have
manual casting process, so they can do it very well.
They can control their production and administrative
costs very low, and their prices are very
competitive. The problems with small foundries are
their production efficiency is limited. Since all
castings are made by hand. They have no ability to
complete large orders. Moreover, their quality is
not stable. Therefore, they can just accept small
orders, and produce the iron castings with low
requirements.
As for the specific foundries, they only produce one
or two types of castings. Such as some foundries
only produce ductile iron pipes. Some just produce
various pipe fittings. Some just produce very large
castings, and some just produce stove parts. These
foundries own the related equipments and rich
experiences for their products, so they can make
them very well. Their problems are they can not make
other types of castings. Their engineers and workers
are not willing to make other products because of
higher defective rate and lower output.
All in all, I believe these problems are not the
exclusive in China. All foundries in the world will
face the same problems. I wrote this article to
advise the buyers and purchasers how to choose the
suitable foundries in China. There are many good
foundries in China, who are maximizing their
strengths, and trying to avoiding their problems.
Writer: Mr. Galen Wang from
Dandong
Ruiding Foundry.
For more articles, please check
Dandong Foundry Blog.
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