SANDMAN® organizes, stores, validates, analyzes, and leverages the foundry's molding-sand data legacy for molding process optimization, using prescriptive and predictive data analytics. This enables the user foundry to move from reactive to proactive green sand control and management, and by corollary, reduce sand related repetitive casting rejections & additives consumption.
The Need
The Problem
The Solution
SANDMAN® is a pioneering cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS), predictive, and prescriptive data analytics solution for optimizing foundry green sand system. Using its proprietary SANDMIX alogorithm, SANDMAN® facilitates variable, "dose-by-need" dosing of additives rather than relying on fixed dosing across casting patterns/jobs.
Powered by machine learning, SANDMAN® leverages data analytics to eliminate the need for experiential fixed sand conditioning and enable precise control of the system sand through a system-driven decision support. This minimizes casting rejection due to over dosing or under dosing of additives while obviating the need to alter man, material, or machine.
SANDMAN® is patented in India, USA, Europe, China, Brazil, Korea and Japan. Its multivariate analysis correlates green sand properties with casting defects, offering predictive and prescriptive recommendations for process control of system sand properties and additives. As the world's first of its kind software, designed for Iron foundries, SANDMAN® sets the bar for optimized foundry green sand management through advanced machine learning driven data analytics.
Analytics
A: HIGH INFLUENCE
"Predictive Analytics"
By employing advanced machine learning algorithms and sophisticated mathematical models, SANDMAN's High Influence algorithm analyses and forms multivariate correlation of the sand properties, identifies the most influential parameters on the casting rejections at a point in time of user choosing, and provides actionable control guidance to minimize rejections.
HIGH INFLUENCE PARAMETERS
B:
"Dose-by-Need" Prescriptive Analytics
This addresses the global foundry process owners' unmet need to target variable, 'dose-by-need' additions of sand additives instead of the fixed dose additions based on pattern changes and consequently significantly reduce return sand variability. The variable, multi-variate analytics using our unique SANDMIX algorithm, translates the optimal sand properties and prescribes a sand recipe for each new group of patterns correlated to the rejections.
Variable, dose-by-need prescriptive analytics also helps reduce the consumption of costly additives such as coal dust, bentonite and raw silica sand by optimisation of the sand loop.
SANDMAN® uses cutting-edge Prescriptive Analytics to prescribe near-precise quantity of additives to be mixed/manipulated to realize consistent and optimum moulding sand process control with a view to achieve consistently, good casting outcomes
SANDMIX ANALYTICS
VARIABLE "DOSE-BY-NEED"
Advantage Of Prescriptive Analytics
Case Study: Reduction of additives consumption by variable dosage using prescriptive analytics based on the requirement of sand to achieve target/optimal properties.
Salient FEATURES
1. Dashboard
SANDMAN's Business Intelligence dashboard is a powerful tool that provides users with an up-to- date, near real-time view of their system sand status, derived from various sources such as PLC/SCADA, mobile and desktop apps. It presents insights and analysis in a user-friendly and comprehensive way that facilitates better- informed and actionable decision-making. Using advanced data analytics and visualization techniques, the dashboard offers detailed insights into key performance metrics, enabling users to track and improve their processes and reduce variability.
Dashboard
SOME SALIENT DASHBOARD FEATURES
Quick metrics of production, rejections, etc. for selected period.
8 Add powerful filters such as date, component, defect, Pareto (component, defect) for a day/week/month or another time period.
8 Pie Charts - Rejections (type and component).
8 Download these graphs in high quality JPEG, PNG, PDF formats for management reports and presentations.
8 The dashboard is designed to enable users to recall, analyse, view and interpret their data over unlimited time periods of their choosing.
2. DATA MANAGEMENT
SANDMAN® offers comprehensive digitization and digitalization capabilities for foundries, providing a simple and straightforward way to manage sand, casting pattern, and process data throughout its life cycle. It’s Desktop and Mobile Data management applications, along with the PLC via SCADA integration, enable the capture and integration of data from various machines in the sand loop, including the mixer, compactability controller, moulding machine, sand, moisture and ambient humidity and temperature sensors, and more. This allows for data to be updated in SANDMAN® in near real-time, ensuring accuracy and accessibility.
DATA STORAGE
3. ANNOTATIONS
As managers age, change and move on, their shop floor experience often moves out with them or is available in limited formats. To overcome this inevitability, a UNIQUE feature of ANNOTATIONS is offered by Sandman which enables you to record shop floor, System-Sand related experiences and events so as to assist you in future situations for informed and legacy data-based decision making.
SYSTEM CHANGES
PROCESS CHANGES
4. SMART ALERTS
SANDMANS's smart alerts are generated using a complex system of pre-defined rules and algorithms that employ data analytics techniques such as anomaly detection and pattern recognition to analyse data and identify any deviations from user-defined process control boundaries. These alerts are triggered when specific conditions are met, allowing for timely intervention and corrective action. The alerts can be delivered via multiple channels, including email, WhatsApp, SMS and in-app notifications, ensuring that users stay informed, alert and can take timely corrective measures.
Common examples:
Security/User behaviour alerts
Process, sand properties, additive addition and quality deviations, and many more system alerts
Performance alerts - These alerts notify users of performance issues or outages.
Analytics alerts - These alerts notify users of trends or changes in key metrics.
5. SPC Tools (Statistical Process Control)
SANDMAN® incorporates a comprehensive suite of Statistical Process Control (SPC) tools, designed to enhance quality control, optimize efficiency, and minimize variability in foundry green sand process control.
These tools enable real-time statistical analysis of sand parameters against rejections by type, component, or group, across unlimited time-frames. These features are fully integrated with the alert management system, ensuring timely and actionable notifications when specific conditions are met.
Some SPC tools available in SANDMAN® include:
1. LINE CHART
2. RUN CHART
3. PROCESS CONTROL CHART
4. PROCESS CAPABILITY METRICS
6. Root Cause Analytics
SANDMAN® leverages advanced statistical tools and techniques to provide a faster and more efficient Root Cause Analysis based on Fishbone/Ishikawa diagrams. By analysing deviations in sand properties between good and poor performance periods in virtual real-time, our solution helps process-owners make informed decisions about their green sand processes.
