Delivering Performance and Dependability, Again and Again

Metalcasting businesses that find an effective and productive manufacturing process will typically stick with it, even expand upon it. That includes their choices in manufacturing equipment design. If you look around the ICT Dualtech Foundry you might find it remarkable that there are four Inductotherm melting systems in operation there – but you will not be surprised once you learn that each furnace is running like clockwork, melting thousands of pounds of charging material without skipping a beat. Since 2002, Dualtech has been relying on Inductotherm Corp.’s melting furnaces, turnkey solution engineering, and reliable customer service to expand from a small machine shop to a serious source of output.

The Dualtech Foundry in Franklin, IN, is part of Innovative Casting Technologies (ICT), a company with over 25 years’ experience developing a wide variety of metal parts from prototyping to production. What started in 1997 as a patternmaking and machining facility evolved in just five to include in-house metalcasting just 5 years later.

Today, this high-mix facility boasts highly advanced molding and metalcasting systems including a fully automated molding line, a sand reclamation process for sand, and melting equipment that the operators describe as “state of the art.” Dualtech primarily manufactures on ferrous castings, although occasionally they handle aluminum casting projects.

The start of it all

Dualtech first approached Inductotherm Corp. in 2017 with a clear vision for an all-in-one ferrous melting system anchored by two furnaces. Business had been picking up steadily at the foundry, and with shop space available following a nearby property acquisition, the foundry management was ready to invest in a comprehensive, plug-and- play melt deck system. Starting from a blank sheet, Inductotherm Corp. had the freedom to engineer and propose a melting installation that uses this new shop floor to its full potential.

Working from an understanding of Dualtech’s needs and recognizing the space available space in mind, Inductotherm Corp. engineers began planning an ideal package to satisfy their requirements. The UNIPAC^® system they developed includes:

• One 600-kW VIP^® Power-Trak^® unit;
• Two 1,000-lbs. capacity, hydraulically tilted Dura-Line^® coreless melting furnaces;
• One hydraulic power supply system;
• Two sets of heavy copper electric buses to transmit power efficiently from the electric power supply to a point adjacent to the melting furnaces
• One water cooling system; and,
• The Inductotherm Melt-Manager Plus^® control system.

All these elements of the complete assembly were prepackaged, piped, and wired by Inductotherm Corp. on freestanding, structural steel working decks prior to shipment.

For Dualtech, this meant that getting started was as simple as assembling the system components, connecting the power, and charging the systems with material to begin melting.

“I think Inductotherm furnaces have done very well for us,” according to Dualtech maintenance manager Dave Stone. “We’re melting thousands of pounds of material… That system can melt that in 20 minutes. Our productivity goes up because we can just pour more in a day.”

Making improvements

With all of the engineering out of the way from the previous project, Inductotherm Corp. was able to deliver the second system in record time. This pre- engineered system also granted significant savings for Dualtech - on installation costs, manpower, and time - because they knew exactly how to assemble it once it arrived.

In fact, Dualtech has placed a new order with Inductotherm Corp. annually, every year through 2024. In 2023, the delivery included a scaled-down system with two 700-lbs. furnaces and a similar configuration to the other melt decks.

The most recent delivery was a third iteration of the 1,000-lbs. furnace UNIPAC^® system at Dualtech’s latest foundry expansion.

Stand-out service

While the Inductotherm machinery demonstrates its own value to the foundry with respect to its productivity, that’s not the only reason that Dualtech continues to select this melting process technology. Inductotherm Corp. is dedicated to providing exceptional customer service too.

“We had an issue with a coil that an operator accidentally hit doing a realign,” recalled Dualtech maintenance manager Dave Stone. “They rushed that call through, did an excellent job, and got us up and running way faster than we had expected.”

“Inductotherm allows Dualtech to have a quicker turnaround on our castings, by allowing us to know what we can produce each day,” explained Dualtech Foundry manager Ronnie Gentry. “We can rely on it… For us to know what we can put out every day, having that consistency and reliability in our machinery is what we look for.”