Sand Printer Economics – Part One

Does producing 100-150 l/hr, (5 ft3 /hr) of printer product save money in foundries?

Pattern Cost? NO! Foundry customers don’t have to pay for a pattern.

Pattern Storage? NO! The pattern related costs for warehousing, maintaining, locating, and transporting to and from the production line continue.

Production throughput? NO! Production for other than a small percentage of molds remains the same.

Investment? NO! A sand printer is an additional cost to produce a small percentage of the molds needed for production.

Can a foundry justify using printed molds and cores?
Buy from a third party? Yes, but No!

YES! IF the foundry can pass additional logistics complexity, quoting, purchasing, ordering, expediting, freight costs, and higher third party costs to the customer.

NO! The foundry can’t continually absorb extra costs to buy enough printed parts to run production.

All good reasons not to use printed molds and cores. 

Foundries generally are considered slow to change with an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality. We believe that the industry is practical, with a healthy skepticism that results from working with difficult, dangerous processes.