Source Die Casting from India:

We will study the following types of casting processes in this study of die casting from India.

• Aluminium Pressure Die Casting
• Zinc or Zamak Die Casting
• Brass Die Casting.

1. The value chain:

For Aluminium Pressure Die Casting:

• The die casting factories in India are organized as per Machine Tonnage. Factories with lower Tonnage machine (120 Ton) are easily available across India. Whereas higher tonnage (850 Ton) machines are less easily available.
• Small scales casting factories supply their casted components to machining factories (can be called as Tier-1) and machining factories supply to the final customer.

For Zamak (Zinc) Die Casting from India:

• Most of the manufacturers have installed the Hot Chamber machines. The factories prefer to serve orders in bulk in Zinc die Casting as the process has a short cycle time.

For Brass Die Casting:

• A few factories only are doing Brass Pressure Die Casting in India. They also outsource the precision & post-casting operation, like machining, etc.

2. APOGEE’s Die-Casting Supplier Base:

3. Factory Organization & Sourcing Model:

For our study, we can categories die casting manufacturer of India into the following 3 categories:

Big Companies:

The big companies want to serve branded customers with bulk orders. They try to keep the entire supply chain in their direct control by having:

• all the required processes in-house, or
• at the sub-supplier who can be influenced easily.

Medium Scale Enterprises:

The SME has maximum potential and hunger to grow. But the customer should be very careful in selecting the SME supplier.

Micro & Small Enterprises:

Micro & small enterprises yield maximum cost benefits to the customer while maintaining the quality and lead time. The suggested business model is as follows:

The customer assigns the contract to the post-casting operation factory. For example, a machining factory becomes tier-1 to supply the finished die casting part.

The tier-1:

• is responsible for machining the die-casted components, in-house.
• purchases the Die casting from another factory.
• manages the surface finishing of the component as an in-house or outsources process.
• gets tooling (Metal die) for casting developed and preserve the same.
• also develops gauges & fixtures for machining operation.

This business model yields more saving potential for the customer because of low overheads of tier-1 and die casting factory. The tier-1 is responsible for meeting all the commercial & technical casting requirements.

4. Timeline:

The major time goes into Tooling Development.  But as you are concerned with the sample, so here is a tentative timeline:

1. Tool Design: 2 weeks
2. Tooling Development: 4 weeks
3. Tool Validation: 2 weeks
4. Sample Production: 2 weeks
5. Sample Dispatch: 1 week

Total: 11 weeks (tentative).

4. Costing:

The costing is pretty much standard in India and easy to calculate. Please always in mind that the Costing and Pricing are different.

The main costing heads are Material Cost and Processing Cost. then we are left with overheads, packing, freight and profit for the factory.

Material Cost:

The Raw Material rates (Rs/Kg) are linked to LME and it is easy for all the factories to agree.

The factories add machining margin, then burning loss and then add the weight of Runner/ Risers to reach Gross Input Weight.

The raw material cost is always calculated based on gross input weight.

Processing Cost:

The Processing cost of Aluminium Pressure Die Casting is based on the Shot Rate.

Let’s assume we are using 120 Ton machine and in each shot, we are getting 2 pieces (2 cavity Tooling).

The cost per shot charged is 1.25 to 1.5 times of 1/10th is the machine tonnage. So for our case, the shot rate should be Rs 15 to Rs 18/ shot. Or Rs 7.5 to Rs 9/ piece.

Once we have these 2 important bits, then it is easy to discuss the cost with the factory and negotiate the selling price.