AFS Texas Chapter - 24th and 25th Jan 2013

Shane Allen, Head of Synchro ERP North American Operations, and Daniel de Alcântara Lopes, Synchro ERP's newest employee from Brazil, attended the January meeting of the American Foundry Society, AFS, Texas Chapter meeting in Houston Texas. All of the events were well attended and very informative.

www.afsinc.org | http://www.afs-tx.org

Wednesday night, as Shane and Daniel were driving to Houston, we had to make a huge detour. Shane, being allergic to eggs and rushing to get out the door, had left his safety critical epinephrine needle at home. Shane, thinking outside of the box, tried to contact his saw bone after hours to get a refill sent to Livingston, but the Dr. never responded. He also tried to get his local apothecary to transfer the prescription to the pharmacy near where they were at, but the prescription was written in such a way that it was brand specific and they could not substitute for another brand. So, Daniel and Shane made a two hour detour (total) to go back and pick up his needle. Never leave home without it.

Thursday morning Shane and Daniel took a tour of Dee Foundries in Houston. Nate McLain provided the tour for us. Dee is a bronze and aluminum facility located near downtown Houston. One very striking thing about Dee foundries is that it is very clean and they heavily emphasize safety - two very important hallmarks in a well-run successful metalcasting operation. The size and quality of the castings are very impressive. Dee Foundries goes the extra mile in using a multitude of custom chills within the mold.

On Friday morning, Shane and Daniel attended the Texas Troubleshooters meeting at EGS Electrical Group Division of Emerson Electric. The sessions were led by Scott Strobl of Simpson Technologies. http://www.simpsongroup.com

The trouble shooting session involved the most fundamental part of the metalcasting process, sand. Sand is used in the molding and core making operations of a metalcaster. If there are sand defects, then the resultant casting will have defects. This was a very fast paced course covering all of the major types of sand and how to insure that the sand is up to quality standards. This is not your standard beach sand. I was pleased that Daniel made the remark that "Shane knows a lot about the metalcasting process". Really made my day. This was the first time that Synchro had attended a troubleshooting session, and it was very worthwhile and Synchro will do our best to attend all of these in the future. I will check and see if they would be interested in a troubleshooting session on costing and estimating that Simon or Richy could provide and also be the keynote speaker.

Shane and Daniel then attended the AFS Texas board meeting where Synchro ERP was recognized as a Platinum and Corporate Sponsor! The meeting discussed upcoming events as well as the chapter college scholorship.

That evening, at the Sam Houston Race Park (horse racing) http://www.shrp.com/ Shane and Daniel were provided an outstanding meal, good fellowship, a program by the aforementioned Scott Strobl. The program was very rushed as he was up against post time. Synchro ERP was recognized again as being a Platinum and Corporate sponsor and our logos were predominately displayed on the TV screen.

Shane was planning on doing a short talk on Synchro, but there just was not time. The whole evening event was very rushed. In fact, the whole day was very rushed. We raced from the troubleshooting meeting to the board meeting, arriving about 5 minutes late, and then raced back to the hotel to get cleaned up and changed. Overall, very good meeting.