DGI continue to manufacture investment castings from their facility in Manchester and offer a number of post operations such as machining, polishing and plating; some in house, others via approved sub contractors. But the business growth comes from the long established supply partnerships with foundries in the Far East, with the low cost manufacturing that benefits the high labour content processes of investment casting, commercial grade investment casting and sand casting.
Other less labour intensive processes such as machining, painting and plating do not offer the same level of savings over the base casting process but are, nevertheless, less expensive in the Far East. For this reason, wherever possible, DGI encourage their customers to add as much value as possible to the parts with the target to supply as near to finished as possible.
Not only do you make direct savings from the added processes, indirect savings from extra handling and transportation at this end.Which all adds to the total savings and keeps the responsibility for supply of good product in one place, rather than the “not our fault” philosophy that so often causes disruption to supply and costly scrap or rework at the wrong end of the process.
DGI’s technical input and quality management procedures are crucial in the supply chain of sourced parts from overseas, something that they have been perfecting now for nearly 10 years.

Labels: sourcing

The Dean Group do not just offer investment castings or lost wax castings, the range encompasses commercial grade investment castings, sand castings and die castings.
As part of their pro active sourcing policy they are now able to source quality extruded parts in both aluminium and brass. Because extrusion has a relatively low labour content, savings over UK production are not as significant as with investment casting; however, if there are subsequent processes involved, drilling/ tapping of holes, cutting to length etc, significant savings are still possible.
This rule applies generally to all the process they source; the more added value that can be applied, the larger the savings. This is particularly true with investment castings where parts could be post machined, electo polished, mechanically hand polished, plated and assembled.

Labels: sourcing

In today’s global market a large percentage of the UK’s manufactured goods come from the Far East, where labour is still relatively cheap.
This is still particularly true where products, such as investment castings, have a large labour content in the manufacturing process.
The Dean Group have invested heavily in the latest manufacturing techniques, in automation and robotics, to try and remain competitive and our UK prices are still the most competitive on a like for like basis. But for larger volume work, the Far East still offer significant benefits for the lost wax process.
The key to success in sourcing from this region is to retain total control of the process parameters and quality procedures and this is where the Dean Group offers the most significant benefits over less technically able sourcing companies. The very reason for choosing the lost wax process for your parts is usually to achieve the very best quality part from a dimensional and surface finish aspect. Investment casting is a highly technical and multi staged process; failure to control any one aspect of this process will have an impact on the subsequent investment casting.
There are a vast number of potential sources in the Far East for investment casting but only a few that can offer the quality and service that we demand in the UK. There are less still that are interested in the smaller accounts. This is where the Dean Group scores again; as we already source a huge range of parts from our supply partners we are able to add relatively small accounts, and offer exactly the same benefits to our range of customers. As one of our supply partner’s largest customers we are able to demand the very best levels of service for our lost wax/ investment castings.

Labels: investment castings, sourcing