How machine vision can optimise and increase foundry production, reduce costs and support high quality standards. We have collected the valuable opinion of Alessandro Mancini, general director of Imago.
Good morning, Alessandro.
Alessandro Mancini
First of all I would ask you to tell us something more about your career and to introduce your company.
I have been working in the field of imaging for about twenty years, covering various roles and acquiring a fair amount of knowledge about machine vision.
In 2009, together with other partners, including my predecessor Attilio Chillemi, we founded Imago, a company that designs and develops control systems for industrial production. We have undertaken this journey by experimenting and adopting cutting-edge technologies to face the challenges that the market offered us and ranging across all production sectors, from die casting to biomedical.
After having established itself as a reference company in quality control for die casting, Imago is also consolidating its role in the application of vision systems for the strategic sector of cast-iron foundry.
Alessandro Mancini
What are the factors that triggered this broadening of market horizons?
Strengthened by the experience gained in die casting, we decided to diversify our production to develop solutions that increase the quality and effectiveness of the performance of the production process of cast-iron foundries.
It is a strategically and geographically crucial sector for us, which is investing significantly to achieve increasingly higher quality standards and to which we have chosen to dedicate ourselves after an in-depth study of its particular needs.
Cast iron foundry is certainly a composite and varied world. What are the needs and features of this sector and what are your strategies? Can you give us some examples of solutions that your systems can offer?
Alessandro Mancini
In this sector the cost of each single part produced can make the difference.
Quality control is therefore essential and highly effective. There are critical issues for which our systems represent a concrete solution, not only as automatic selectors of compliant and rejectable parts, but also intercepting errors and drifts to really prevent waste.
By tracking the data of each check carried out, our systems provide the customer with all the fundamental information on their production process. Imago systems are already available for checking the integrity of sand moulds, verifying the core-mold coupling and the presence of filters and for three-dimensional and quality checks on raw and machined parts.
We are ready to welcome new requests and challenges to provide our customers with customised solutions.
Let's go back to die casting to talk about the Mhira3D system. This device has made Imago a point of reference in the international panorama of quality control in foundries.
Alessandro Mancini
A new version has recently been installed at major companies in the sector, intended for the analysis of large parts in the latest-generation Giga-presses; it is also ideal for small cells, productions with limited cycle times and thin-walled dies.
Can you tell us about these new applications?
To meet the new needs of the Giga-press market, we have created a dedicated version of the Mhira3D, the Giga-Mhira3D, which is capable of analysing large parts through a single high resolution image and without interfering with the cycle time of the press.
This is an example of how the Mhira3D device, now adopted by major foundries in Italy, Europe and around the world, is the result of a cutting-edge and continually evolving project.
Other news for the die casting sector?
Alessandro Mancini
With the growing production of increasingly thinner profiles, we have developed a new system capable of detecting deformations due to the cooling phase of the part itself in each cycle.