ACCOMPLISHING A VISION

JPF Metacast had to undertake the challenging project of developing 28 different parts of the housing flywheel for its client Cummins India, which had to be done in just two years including the pandemic period. Here’s how the project saw the light of day and the benefits it entailed…

JPF Metacast Pvt Ltd manufactures and supplies cast iron and ductile iron castings to several OEMs, including Cummins India Ltd, Atlas Copco Ltd, Ace Micromatic Group, Dynapac India Ltd, and others. The company was founded in 1981 and has since expanded to produce 400 tonne per month with machining. With 40 years of experience, the company has received various awards from the Government of India and quality awards from different organizations.

Project Vision 2020

Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association’s National Productivity Summit provided JPF Metacast an opportunity to present its case study named ‘Vision 2020’. The project presented an ambitious target of developing 28 different parts of the Housing Flywheel in just two years, including the COVID-19 period.

JPF undertook the project for its customer Cummins India Ltd to offload its in-house activity and utilize the capacity for engine assembly. It began with understanding the customer’s needs, identifying the shortcomings, analyzing them, and preparing a time chart. JPF implemented the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) principle.

The total requirement was 30 units per day but, with the manual production system, the company had a capacity of
only 15 units per day. The challenge was meeting the resource requirement both at the foundry and machining stages. With the current setup, it was not possible to meet the customer’s requirements.

Looking for the solution

Several manufacturing processes were evaluated, including jolt squeeze moulding machines, continuous mixers with track lines, and Nobake moulding systems. Various factors were analyzed, such as risks, costs, movement of manpower and machinery, failure modes, cycle times, manpower requirements, input cost reduction, space requirements, environmental impact, and energy efficiency. Following a thorough examination, the decision was made to introduce the Rhino high-pressure moulding machine, which is completely indigenized and made in India.

Thanks to this project, JPF gained the confidence to handle high volumes of customer orders while maintaining consistent quality and high dimensional accuracy. This also earned the trust of the customer in JPF’s expertise, establishing the company as a specialist in manufacturing housing flywheels.

It was decided to install a high-pressure moulding line that could increase productivity by 60 percent, reduce manpower, reduce costs, minimize space, and, most importantly, take environmental factors into consideration (See Table 1 & 2).

At the machine shop, different options were explored to improve the material flow, layout, and production process. This included the introduction of new toolings, online inspections, reducing machining allowances, and modifying fixtures change in the tool path. As a result of these improvements, the company was able to reduce the production cycle time and improve the productivity to 50 units per day. The system was closely monitored and found to be stable, with a cp of 2.67 and a cpk of 2.14.

Favorable results

With the new investment, JPF was able to achieve a return on investment (ROI) in just 3.5 years. The total cost of ownership (TCO) was significantly reduced, resulting in substantial savings. Along with improving productivity, the implementation of the system led to consistency in product quality. The PPM level was reduced from 31,016 to 1,000. The overall business increased from 38 percent to 50 percent, and the project generated a revenue of `3.05 crore.


	New technology driven production: Reducing use of natural resource – sand by initiating High Pressure Moulding Line – Green sand