Having been in business for more than 150 years, Intermet is considered an expert in designing, engineering, and manufacturing castings from ductile iron, aluminumCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, magnesium, and zinc. The operation has a capacity of more than 700,000 tons annually. With headquarters in Ft. Worth, TX, the corporation consists of three multi-plant manufacturing divisions: ferrous, die cast, and PCPC (pressure-counter-pressure casting控制工程网版权所有, an advanced aluminum casting technology). Intermet's products include chassiswww.cechina.cn, brakes, powertrains, and interior auto body components, and can be found on vehicles produced by most major auto manufacturers.
　　In the early 1990s, Intermet began working with GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, implementing Proficy HMI/SCADA iFIX monitoring and control at its Columbus, GAwww.cechina.cn, foundry, one of four facilities in the ferrous group. The goal was to speed production data-collection and -sharing throughout the plant. Applications expanded quickly, and the company has now upgraded to version 4.0 and added Proficy Historian 3.0 and Real Time Information Portal 2.5 to the package.
　　In 1999, the company began integrating work by its division manufacturing systems programmer, Tom Ihrie, into the Proficy system. Assisted by GE Fanuc system integration partner Advantage Industrial Automation, DuluthCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, GAwww.cechina.cn, the company developed a way to improve its ability to collect critical process spectrometer data and generate reports on casting metal quality. What began as a data collection system was soon helping boost efficiency and make decisions about plant operations.
　　"When we started looking at data monitoring, we found many of our issues were driven by scrap," says Mike Smith, the facility's process improvement manager. "We'd look at product trends one day and everything looked good. The next day they'd be bad. When you see those kinds of ups and downs, you know something in your own process is making it occur. With a process as large as ours, with several interconnected function