Foundry & Metals
Run the melt shop on records, not memory.
MaintenanceIQ Foundry & Metals is a shipped industry module that adds melt, pour and outcome records, refractory campaign tracking and casting quality controls to an industrial CMMS. It helps your melt shop supervisor, your maintenance planner and your quality head work from one record, from the furnace lining to the casting that leaves the gate.
An illustrative day
A day in a foundry
06:00. Your melt shop supervisor opens Foundry Operations. The furnace fleet is ranked by campaign risk, so the furnace closest to its reline sits at the top. Induction melter IM-02 (illustrative) has run more heats than usual this week, and its projected reline date has moved closer. Your planner sees the same date and books the reline into a planned stop instead of waiting for a lining failure.
08:30. The first heat on IM-02 is logged: charge weight, tap weight, tap temperature and energy. Melt loss and kWh per tonne fall out of the numbers. The spectro result is entered against the alloy grade, and the heat shows an In or Out pill for each element band before anyone pours.
10:00. The heat pours into several moulds. Each pour is its own record, linked to the heat it came from. In the shell room, an operator weighs ceramic shells at the station screen. One shell is light, so it is flagged before firing rather than after a run-out on the pour.
14:00. Knockout and inspection. Good and scrap castings are recorded by defect code and by the stage where the defect was found. Nobody types a yield figure. Yield is computed from what was poured and what passed.
17:00. Your quality head opens the Yield tab and the defect Pareto by pattern and alloy. The top defect on one pattern points back to the shell room, not the melt. Next month, when the VDA 6.3 auditor asks for maintenance and calibration evidence, the pack builds from the same records.
Melt, pour and outcome, each on its own record
Melting and casting are separate stages, owned by different people at different times. MaintenanceIQ keeps them that way. A heat is one record. A heat pours many moulds or trees, and each pour is a record. Each outcome, good or scrap, is a record with a defect code and the stage it was found.
Because every stage stands alone, cross-stage numbers are computed joins, not hand-entered columns. Casting yield is good divided by poured, by pattern and by alloy, with a defect Pareto beside it. Three roles capture data on three screens, and nobody has to fill in someone else's numbers.
- Heat and melt logs: charge and tap weight, melt loss, tap temperature, kWh per tonne, melt rate and duration
- Charge mix (returns, scrap and virgin material) with melt cost per tonne from your own rates
- Pattern master, pour records and outcome records by defect code and stage found
- Computed casting yield and defect Pareto by pattern and alloy
See the reline coming
Refractory linings wear on a schedule of their own. Each furnace carries its lining type, reline date and rated campaign life. Every heat you log advances the campaign, so wear percentage, heats per day and a projected reline date come straight out of the melt log.
When the lining is replaced, a Record reline action resets the campaign and keeps the history. The Foundry Operations page ranks the whole furnace fleet with reline-due furnaces first, so your planner books the work before the lining decides for you.
- Foundry asset tab: furnace type, melt capacity, lining type, reline date, rated campaign life, live wear percentage, maximum operating temperature
- Projected reline date from actual heat cadence
- Reline history kept for every furnace
Quality controls on the melt and the mould
Each control classifies a reading against a band you set, so out-of-spec shows up while there is still time to act.
Spectro chemistry vs grade bands
An alloy grade master holds the band for each element. Each heat's spectro result is classified In or Out against those bands, so chemistry right the first time is visible heat by heat.
Green sand control
For sand shops: per-batch tests for moisture, compactability, green compression strength, permeability and AFS clay, classified in or out of spec against per-asset bands, with a trend.
Shell weight control
For investment shops: each ceramic shell is weighed after dewax and judged against its pattern's band. Too light or too heavy is flagged before firing. The verdict and band are frozen on each record.
Built for the shell room floor
Shell weight bands can be set three ways: a target plus tolerance on day one, a baseline study, or derived from shells you have already weighed. Refreshing a baseline never rewrites what the floor decided on an earlier day, because the band used is stored with the verdict.
Operators get a one-thumb station screen. The Shell Weight station works offline and syncs when the network returns. Managers see weighing runs (who weighed what, and which went wrong), a control chart, an out-of-band alert, a dashboard tile, and CSV or Excel export.
For investment shops, shell room control logs slurry viscosity, ambient temperature and humidity, and shell dry time against their bands, along with castings per tree, dewax and burnout firing logs, and NDT and FPI outcome stages. A process setting decides which panels appear, so sand shops see sand control and investment shops see the shell room.
Tooling, traceability and condition, on the same record
Die and tooling master
A die is a reconfigurable block of steel. Its master, variants and revisions are separate records, with drawings and PPAP packs filed against them and field-level history of every change. Approved metals act as a pour lock, and tool life is logged at shot count.
How: Licensable add-on of the Foundry package
Production route and lot traveler
You compose your own route, from core assembly to dispatch. A lot travels it, stamped at each stage with operator, time, quantity and scrap. A WIP board shows where every order is, and a dispatched casting drills back to the heat and chemistry it was poured from.
How: Licensable production route module
Condition monitoring, included
Condition monitoring is granted automatically with the Foundry module. Set warning and critical limits on furnace and auxiliary parameters, feed readings by hand, from a PLC or SCADA gateway, or by CSV import, and let a critical reading open a breakdown.
Learn moreVDA 6.3 and IATF 16949 evidence from daily work
Automotive customers audit your maintenance. The evidence pack for VDA 6.3 and IATF 16949 builds from the work your team already logged: asset register, PM compliance, calibration log, work order history, breakdowns through to corrective action and closure, and checklist records.
A gaps summary and readiness score show what is missing before the auditor does. Each pack is frozen as a record that cannot be edited, and it can carry an optional electronic signature. MaintenanceIQ gives your auditor evidence. Certification comes from your certification body.
- Clause-labeled sections with a readiness score
- Immutable pack, downloaded through a short-lived signed link
- Optional e-signature with named signer, timestamp and meaning
Proven where the metal is poured
Casting manufacturers run MaintenanceIQ on their floors today. Customer names withheld.
A precision investment casting foundry, Gujarat
A full manufacturing solution provider serving automotive, oil & gas, marine, energy and healthcare. 8,000+ parts · 100+ alloys · 22+ countries served.
A casting manufacturer
Running MaintenanceIQ to keep production reliable, maintenance planned and audits ready.
Frequently asked questions
Is Foundry & Metals a separate product?
It is a licensable industry module on top of Core CMMS. You keep work orders, preventive maintenance, calibration, parts and downtime, and add the foundry records, Foundry Operations and condition monitoring.
Does it work for both sand and investment casting?
Yes. A process setting controls which panels appear. Sand shops get green sand control. Investment shops get shell room control, shell weight control, dewax and burnout logs, and NDT and FPI stages.
Do we have to type in casting yield?
No. Yield is computed from your pour and outcome records, good divided by poured, by pattern and by alloy. The defect Pareto comes from the same records.
Does the shop floor app work without a network?
The Shell Weight station works offline and syncs when the network returns. The rest of the app is an installable mobile app that loads when the signal drops, but saving work needs a connection.
Can we try it before we buy?
Yes. Start a free three-day trial and choose Foundry at signup, which turns on the foundry modules for the trial. Or book a demo and we will walk through it on your process.