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 Signicast's Hartford, WI Facility
 Signicast's Milwaukee, WI Facility
 Automatic Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS)
 Automated Dip Cell
 Burn Out Station
 Melt Cell
| | About Us Signicast is a state-of-the-art investment casting manufacturer with facilities in Hartford and Brown Deer, Wisconsin. We have the capability to pour castings ranging in size from a few ounces up to 200 pounds. Our Hartford facility has become a showcase for continuous flow manufacturing, operating 24/7 as a fully automated plant. Many of the traditionally outsourced components of the investment casting process are done in-house at Signicast - such as tool making, secondary machining, heat treating, painting, and assembly - which provides us with total control of the manufacturing process every step of the way. Our engineering staff takes a hands-on approach with every part we manufacture, with every part being assigned an account manager, estimating engineer, project engineer, and process engineer who are responsible from seeing the part from its inception at the onset of the project through its completion. Company Facts - Two facility company with locations in Brown Deer and Hartford, WI
- The Brown Deer facility is home to the majority of our specialty work including soluble core parts, exotic alloy applications, and parts in excess of 25-30 pounds.
- Our Hartford facility is a six module campus that exemplifies the concept of continuous flow manufacturing.
- Four of the modules operate as independent investment casting plants, each with their own engineering and support staff. Each module also has its own heat-treating center, which accelerates the manufacturing process from start to finish.
- Module five is our machining and secondary facility, where our castings can be machined, painted, assembled and prepared for shipping. It is also home to our wax reclamation center.
- Our support module is home to our administrative staff, our quality control center, as well as our tool room.
- Founded in 1959, Signicast has grown to become the largest investment casting manufacturer in North America today.
Value Added Services - Engineering Capabilities
- Design Assistance
- Our engineering staff takes a hands-on approach regarding design assistance on our customers' parts. Whether it is design modification for functionality or cost savings, or the development of a new investment casting from scratch, our engineers will be there to help every step of the way. Our engineers use three-dimensional CAD/CAM software which provides our engineers with precise geometrical information about the casting. We are able to share these data files with our customers using whatever software system they prefer.
- Solidification Modeling
- To assure high integrity components with a minimum number of sample trials, Signicast utilizes modeling software that accurately simulates the solidification of an investment casting. The solidification model is typically created through the use of our customers' CAD model. The solidification program allows our engineers to identify potentially problematic areas in our castings prior to the tool building stage. Investment casting design, gating, and process parameters can be altered and tested in both a time and cost-effective manner through our solidification modeling exercise.
- Process Control
- Our process control engineers are responsible for controlling and monitoring the variables that impact the part once it goes into production. They work hand-in-hand with our project engineers to ensure that our customers receive the high quality parts that they have come to expect with every production cycle at Signicast.
- Tool Making
- Signicast has a fully equipped Corporate Tooling Center that operates 24/7 in our Hartford complex. This center is responsible for the creation of all of the investment casting tooling used in both our Brown Deer and Hartford facilities. All of our tools are designed for maximum wearability, with adjustable gibbs and wear plates beneath all slides. We exclusively build automatic or semi-automatic tooling which decreases the injection time and helps lower the piece price and provides greater consistency over the life of the program.
- Continuous Flow
- The traditional investment casting process incorporates large batches moving from station to station in each step of the process. At Signicast, an unbroken stream of individual investment cast components flows continuously through our plant. All orders, regardless of size, go from entry to shipping with no interruptions. Our unique proprietary software continuously monitors and controls the investment casting process, ensuring that our schedules remain 100% on time.
- Automatic Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS)
- Guiding this unparalleled system are Signicast's multiple Automatic Storage and Retrieval Systems. Acting as a material handling device as well as a storage system, the ASRS units automatically move investment casting product from one operation to the next. ASRS minimizes work-in-progress, completely eliminating the need for forklifts, and ensures parts are where they need to be, precisely when they need to be there. An electronic tracking system adds flexibility, allowing processes to change in mid-stream when necessary.
- In-house Secondaries
- Heat Treating
- Each manufacturing module has its own heat treating center, which allows us to keep the cost of the operation to a minimum. We are also able to save substantial amounts of time in our production cycle through the heat treating process, because what would take most investment casting foundries 5-10 days to complete, we do in 20 hours.
- Machining
- Module 5 is home to our machining center, which handles all of the secondary machining requirements that our customers' parts may have. This includes milling, drilling, tapping, surface grinding, broaching, and multi-spindle and turning lathes, and by utilizing these as in-house operations rather than outside services, we are able to cut down substantial amounts of time in the production cycle of a casting from start to finish.
- Painting
- Our fully automated paint line is also located in module 5, and can be used to paint castings whatever color our customers need. It runs 24/7 along with the rest of our plant, and is the final step in the manufacturing process at Signicast prior to packaging.
- Quality Control
- Project/Process Engineers
- Our dedicated project and process engineers monitor the castings throughout the entire manufacturing process from start to finish. Whether it be maintaining tight tolerances of casting dimensions, or doing a metallurgical analysis to ensure the chemical makeup of the part, our engineers are involved in the production cycle every step of the way.
- Quality Control Center
- In addition to the quality maintenance of our engineers, Signicast also has a quality control center that handles all of our PPAP reports, and uses state-of-the-art inspection equipment to measure every critical dimension. Our quality control center is located in the support module in Hartford, and services all five manufacturing modules, including our Brown Deer facility.
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