Prospects and directions of digital transformation in foundry

Abstract

The time of information technology determines its priorities, which are a prerequisite for building a competitive production and economy. The ubiquitous spread of digitalization is one of the basic principles of new economy, a new type of socio–economic structure that is gradually being formed in the modern world through the introduction of scientific and technological progress and innovative methods of management, intellectualization and capitalization of human knowledge, the use of advanced new information and material technologies, accelerated development of knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy, the formation of creative, efficient, rational information and material production. Currently, at large foundries with mass and large-scale production of castings, the task of automating the control of technological processes using digital control systems was solved in general. They implement algorithms for controlling technological processes of casting in closed circuits (locally). The systems under consideration allow to implement optimal control strategies and automatically perform sequences of operations (start and stop of equipment; calculation and input of metal charge; calculation of formulations, dosing and mixing of molding and core mixtures) of multi-stage periodic casting processes. Digital transformation can significantly change the established practice of foundry production (from direct control and management of technological processes to business planning and document management). The transformation will have an impact on all parameters of the enterprise: economic efficiency of production (productivity, operating costs); reliability (operational readiness); safety (number of incidents); compliance with legislative norms on ecology. The technological criterion for success of the digital transformation of foundry production will be the release of a nomenclature of castings with a minimum level of defect, commercial – the release of a nomenclature of castings in demand on the market (machine parts and mechanisms), with a minimum self-cost, which is determined by the technological level of preparation of the production and its implementation and, as a consequence, low costs and optimal quality of molds, metal and castings.