Guides
Long-form practical guides on baselining a cell, building a golden set and authoring a process window.
Everything weknow, writtendown.
Guides, reference material, calculators and reading for metallurgists, process engineers, quality teams and plant directors evaluating autonomy in a foundry.
[PLACEHOLDER] Downloadable assets are described here and provided on request while the resource library is being published.
6Resource types
9Defect classes covered
3Autonomy gates explained
Six resourcetypes.
Calculators
ROI and payback models for scrap, melt energy, inspection throughput and labour constraint.
Reference
The defect field guide, connector matrix and agent reference.
Walkthroughs
Recorded loop walkthroughs from perception to bounded action, per agent.
Templates
Baseline plan, success-metric and safety-review templates used in real engagements.
Writing
Engineering, metallurgy and industry articles from the team.
Practical, plant-tested guides.
Guide · Operations
How to baseline a wedge cell in eight weeks
Choosing the cell, identifying ground truth, capturing a representative period and avoiding the three most common baseline mistakes.
Guide · Quality
Building a golden set from your own inspection data
Turning X-ray, CT and dimensional results into a labelled evaluation set per alloy and geometry family, and how big it needs to be.
Guide · Metallurgy
Authoring a process window a machine can respect
Translating a metallurgist's judgement into explicit, signed bounds for every controlled parameter — and what to do about the edges.
Guide · Safety
Running a safety review for bounded write-back
What quality and EHS should ask before software is allowed to move a setpoint, and the artefacts that answer them.
Guide · IT/OT
Integrating a foundry MES without duplicating genealogy
Keeping your MES authoritative while enriching casting genealogy with agent actions, approvals and gradings.
Guide · Operations
Measuring melt energy per tonne at the heat level
A defensible method for baselining the largest controllable cost in most foundries before claiming any improvement.
Nine defects.Cause, signal,control response.
The defect classes Smelteon's models are built around — and what the loop actually does about each.
Gas porosity
Gas
Dissolved hydrogen or entrained air. Signalled by melt chemistry, degassing history and X-ray. Controlled through degassing, holding practice and pour turbulence.
Shrinkage porosity
Shrinkage
Insufficient feeding during solidification. Signalled by thermal curves and CT. Controlled through gating, riser design, pour temperature and cooling rate.
Inclusions
Cleanliness
Slag, dross and refractory carried into the mold. Signalled by melt handling, filter state and radiography. Controlled through skimming practice, filtration and pour stream stability.
Cold shuts
Fill
Two fronts meeting without fusing. Signalled by pour temperature, fill time and vision. Controlled through pour temperature, fill rate and mold preheat.
Misruns
Fill
Incomplete fill. Signalled by fill time, metal head and shakeout vision. Controlled through pour temperature, tilt profile and venting.
Hot tears
Stress
Tearing during solidification under restraint. Signalled by thermal gradient and geometry. Controlled through cooling rate, shakeout timing and mold rigidity.
Sand and core defects
Mold
Erosion, drops, veining and core breakage. Signalled by sand lab data, compaction and mold scan. Controlled through sand additions, compaction and core handling.
Dimensional faults
Geometry
Out-of-tolerance features and mismatch. Signalled by dimensional scanning. Controlled through mold assembly, core placement and shakeout timing.
Microstructure deviation
Structure
Nodularity, chill and phase deviation. Signalled by thermal analysis and metallography. Controlled through inoculation, treatment timing and cooling rate.
InputsModelPayback
Wedge pain range$500k–$5M
Month cell payback6–12
Month enterprise payback< 14
Scrap and rework valueinput
Melt energy per tonneinput
Inspection throughput costinput
Constrained labour hoursinput
Modelled improvement vs. tier priceoutput
Four inputs.One paybacknumber.
The Smelteon ROI model takes the annual cost of scrap and rework at the cell, melt energy per tonne, inspection throughput cost and constrained labour hours, and compares the modelled improvement against the tier price. We will run it with your numbers on the first call.
- Annual scrap and rework value at the wedge cell
- Melt energy per tonne and correction-addition volume
- Inspection throughput and escape-risk exposure
- Constrained labour hours and overtime at the cell
The vocabularywe use.
- Wedge cell
- The single melt, mold, pour, inspection or finishing cell chosen for the first engagement because it has the clearest, largest and most measurable pain.
- Shadow mode
- The agent perceives and predicts but takes no action. Used to capture a baseline and validate accuracy against plant ground truth.
- Assist mode
- The agent recommends actions that a human engineer approves individually. Corrections become training labels.
- Bounded write-back
- The agent adjusts setpoints autonomously within a process window authored and signed by your engineers, with rollback armed and exceptions escalating.
- Process window
- The explicit bounds a controlled parameter may move within, authored and signed by a metallurgist or process engineer.
- Golden set
- A labelled evaluation dataset built from your own inspection results, used to gate model promotion for an alloy and geometry family.
- Casting genealogy
- The full lineage of a casting: heat, mold, cores, pour, cooling, finishing, inspection gradings and every agent action along the way.
- Hit soundness before the pour
- Predicting a casting's soundness from live melt and mold state and adjusting the pour plan before metal is committed.
Three pathsby role.
Metallurgist
Start with the physics
- Defect field guide
- Authoring a process window
- Agent reference in the docs
Quality
Start with the evidence
- Building a golden set
- The audit log and genealogy model
- Running a safety review
Plant director
Start with the number
- How to baseline a wedge cell
- The ROI model
- Pricing and payback targets
6
Practical guides
9
Defect classes covered
8
Glossary terms
3
Role-based reading paths
Getting holdof things.
Email hello@smelteon.com and tell us which engagement stage you are at. Baseline plan, success-metric and safety-review templates are shared with plants actively scoping a pilot.
Yes, with attribution. If you want it adapted to your specific alloys and geometries, that is part of a scoping engagement.
We run baseline-review workshops with design partners and prospective partners, on site, with the engineers who will actually approve the actions.
Take it toyour own cell.
The guides are useful. Running them against your real scrap number is better.