Published

Better quality at a lower cost: Grede sees early scrap reductions with Monitizer at all nine North American foundries

Foundry giant Grede has embarked on a major digitalization project to deploy advanced Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology at all nine of its North American foundries. Grede chose Norican Group’s Monitizer | DISCOVER IIoT solution for the project. Four months after going live, every foundry running the new system has cut its scrap rate.

Serving the complex needs of the automotive, heavy truck and industrial sectors, Grede operates nine foundries and three machining centers across the USA. In 2020, Grede put digitalizing its production at the heart of its strategy.

“We’re moving from the art of the foundry to the science of metalcasting™,” says Cary Wood, Grede’s CEO. “Systems and innovation are critical to our success. We will use data and AI to take the variability out of our process to produce high-quality castings at lower cost.”


Grede picks IIoT for strategic advantage

“When Covid hit in 2020 and so many experienced employees left our industry, we accelerated our digital plan,” says Susan Bear, Grede’s Chief Technology Officer. “We are rolling out IIoT between now and 2026, then moving to AI-driven process optimization.”

“Replacing know-how with data will take the pressure off newer employees and help them be as effective as industry veterans – helping us bridge our industry’s skills gap,” explains Susan. “Our number one priority is to monitor real time data and KPIs so we can react fast and fix any issues immediately.”

Across 2020-21, Grede started defining its processes to get ready for IIoT and carefully surveyed system vendors. They chose Norican’s Monitizer IIoT platform – a system built for complex industrial processes like foundries, built by foundry experts including DISA, Simpson, Wheelabrator, StrikoWestofen and ItalPresseGauss specialists.


A trusted foundry solution

“For us, Monitizer was an easy choice,” says Susan, “Grede has a long, trusting relationship with the Norican team and its equipment brands. If there is a maintenance issue, DISA is always right there to address it. Same with Simpson, same with Wheelabrator.”

All Grede’s foundries have used Norican equipment for decades. “Monitizer actually works with any equipment, but Norican knows us inside and out,” notes Susan.

Monitizer | DISCOVER is a modular IIoT platform that can collect data from any vendor's equipment across multiple lines or sites globally. It aggregates stores and displays live and historical data via easy-to-understand, customized dashboards and KPIs.

Monitizer | PRESCRIBE harnesses the power of AI provided by Norican’s AI partner DataProphet, to optimize an entire foundry process and is proven to drive average scrap reductions of 40%.

“Another reason we picked Monitizer is that it’s the only solution that has the AI piece,” says Susan. “It replaces that lost know-how with technology that makes recommendations and provides guidance for our teams.”


Connecting nine foundries, fast

For the quickest ROI, Grede is deploying Monitizer | DISCOVER in parallel across all nine foundries. It connected its sand equipment and molding machines first.

“Connecting machines has been pretty slick, Monitizer’s gateways just plug into any equipment’s PLCs,” says Matt Deyarmond, IoT Process and Control Lead at Grede. “We connected our Liberty facility first which uses non-DISA molding machines and that was a complete success.”

It’s easy for users to customize their dashboards to suit local needs, but Grede chose to deploy the same KPIs and dashboards across all facilities. That makes it simpler to compare plant performance and feed learnings from one facility to the others. Monitizer’s foundry DNA stood out immediately.

“The standard dashboards were built by people who know foundries,” says Matt. “They probably saved us over 80% on our set-up time. The system is simple to use and navigate, and it was easy to make minor changes ourselves.”


Instant foundry intelligence from Monitizer | DISCOVER

Live data on-screen lets operators instantly see if their machine and other process elements are on track. If a machine drops out of tolerance, they can act immediately to prevent scrap.

“We have screens out by the [Simpson] Hartley and in the sand lab so we can monitor how the sand is running,” says Matt. “We show our DISA operators that same data, so they know they are getting good sand.”

Monitors in the team meeting rooms show live machine KPIs and plant-wide metrics, like real-time overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). Because it is a cloud system, users can securely access Monitizer’s real-time data anywhere.

“I can click into the plant dashboards wherever I am – in the office or on a plane,” says Susan. “We can deep dive into any one of our foundries, drill down into, say, sand compactability or step back and look at our corporate view to instantly see how all the plants are running.”

Alerts keep quality on track

Monitizer | DISCOVER's sophisticated alarm functions enhance production control and further support inexperienced users. If an issue needs attention, the system contacts different groups of people in different waves, one after another, depending on how the problem develops and whether the first alerted group reacts.

“If a machine runs outside its “green” operating zone, the supervisor gets alerted,” says Bart Hoemann, General Manager, at Grede’s St. Cloud foundry. “If it exceeds its control limits, it escalates to the quality manager. Exceed control limits five times and the plant manager gets notified.”

This real-time control and process visibility is already driving major production improvements.

Big early wins

“One of our foundries used Monitizer’s information to cut scrap by 50% by reducing sand inclusions,” says Susan. “The five foundries that are live with Monitizer have all have seen scrap reductions. Those are big quick wins that have a direct impact on our bottom line.”

“Monitizer | DISCOVER has already made us more competitive,” continues Susan. “Because we can see potential quality issues coming, we can prevent scrap from happening and increase productivity. It’s the same if equipment starts to malfunction, alerts help us react in time to prevent failure.”

At one plant, staff quickly connected a furnace to monitor unusual temperature spikes. That helped avoid serious downtime. Grede now feeds back Monitizer data into everything from sand analysis to digital simulations for tooling development.


Grede and IIoT: “We’re just getting started!”

Grede is currently in the process of connecting its melt shops. Once all the foundries are connected, the team’s goal is to move on to phase 2, which would include AI optimization with Monitizer | PRESCRIBE.

“In a green sand foundry, there are up to 2700 different variables. You can’t control all those using spreadsheets,” explains Mike Meyer, VP of Operational Excellence at Grede. “PRESCRIBE’s AI can help us understand how they work together and control them much more effectively. We’d basically be digitalizing the experience we’ve gained over 30 years of operations.”

Susan adds: “It’s incredibly exciting to have live information at my fingertips and have this level of visibility and control. We’re just getting started and we expect to see further positive change within the next two years.”

“Norican’s foundry experience has made the implementation go a lot quicker and easier, they really hit the ground running,” she continues. “The Monitizer team is effectively an extension of our IT team, and we trust their people completely.”

“You need full C-suite commitment for this kind of project,” states CEO Cary. “You have to build the culture, show the benefits and take everyone with you. And you need the right technology and supplier. We had a vision of how we wanted to support the business. Norican’s Monitizer is delivering it for us.”