West Midlands-based Thomas Dudley Foundry (www.thomasdudley.co.uk) is installing a new moulding line as part of a major investment that will see a brand-new foundry constructed alongside its existing foundry in Tipton.

The new Disamatic D3 moulding line will increase its manufacturing capacity by 50%, and the castings produced will have twice as much cooling time.

In addition, the new facility will have the capability to produce SiMo castings to customer specifications, further enhancing the company’s ability to engineer high-quality castings to extremely tight tolerances.

In 2019, work will commence on new dedicated finishing facilities, including shot blast, core making, warehousing, a filtration plant, compressors and robotic fettling.

According to Thomas Dudley, no foundry in Europe can provide the level of flexibility — in terms of volumes and grades — that the new foundry will offer.

Company director Mick Cramphorn said: “We have now invested more than £25 million over the last 10 years in our foundry capabilities.

This third new Disamatic moulding line will produce about 425 moulds per hour in a fully integrated facility.

It gives us a competitive advantage, as this investment combines safety, quality and productivity into a world-class flexible foundry solution.