Issues in Procurement of Castings

The aim of this paper is to present current and future procedures in castings procurement. Differences in procurement are highlighted. The supplier selection criteria used in practice is compared to literature findings. Different trends related to supply chains are presented and it is described how they are reflected in reality to castings procurement. To fulfil the aim, interviews were conducted in nine companies using castings. It was found that largest casting users have the most subcontractor foundries and it is more typical that they have multiple suppliers for the same parts. Currently only two companies out of nine purchase castings outside Europe, but the others are also progressing in the same direction. The main reason is the need to lower purchasing costs. Another trend is that all companies want to buy cast components or sub-assemblies instead of raw castings from foundries. It was found that price is a main supplier selection criterion. All companies use competitive bidding in supplier selection. Keywords—Casting, interview study, procurement, supply trends. I. INTRODUCTION HE aim of this paper is to present current procedures in castings procurement, including the number of suppliers, geographical location of subcontractors and purchased volumes. Differences in procurement are highlighted (according to company size, types of castings purchased, relative importance of castings). The supplier selection criteria used in practice is compared to literature findings. Different trends related to supply chains are presented and it is described how they are reflected in reality to castings procurement. Future trends of castings procurement are described. To fulfil our goal, we conducted interviews in nine companies using castings. This study is restricted to Finnish companies using castings. Only cast iron and steel castings cast into sand moulds are covered. In this study, raw casting means non-upgraded casting. Cast component is a casting that has been washed, machined and is ready to be installed. We did not find previous studies regarding solely procurement of castings.