Our Process

Click on each step to learn more about our process

We work closely with your engineering staff to understand your casting. We ask many questions upfront about materials and tolerances, tooling, and the environment where it will “live”.  This in-depth technical dialogue enables us to optimize your part's design and manufacturing cost, improve its castability, and ensure that it will meet your quality requirements.

1

Define product specifications

Our highly skilled, in-house pattern makers can build new tooling to meet your specifications. They follow strict manufacturing guidelines to ensure the highest quality castings. Our team is also capable of repairing existing tools and adapting them to our production processes.

2

Prepare tooling for production

Our stringent but streamlined approach sets the process for producing high-quality prototype castings and getting them into production quickly. That means fewer production delays in your factory. Whether it is an industry-standard Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) or your company specification, we can deliver the pertinent information for your quality control process.

3

New product sampling

Your casting enters production. Our LEAN processes and controls ensure we’re able to produce castings that meet or exceed your quality requirements - every time.

4

Manufacturing begins

We're always on the lookout for ways to eliminate additional costs from your castings while maintaining the highest level of production quality. Also, our flexible production scheduling system enables us to deliver castings when you need them.

5

Continuous improvement

People

Our people are remarkable

We believe that work is more than a place we go every day. It’s a place of growth, creativity, collaboration, and internal and external relationships. It’s what makes working and contributing here so unique. We encourage and develop our employees to be involved and empowered, inspiring them to turn plans into action.

We want our people to take pride in their work by providing top-notch customer support and producing superior-quality products. Its philosophy extends to every area of our business, from engineers and manufacturing specialists to accounts payable and customer advocates.

After all, our people’s combined talents, skills, knowledge, experience, and passion make us who we are.

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What You Can Expect

Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect when you partner with us.

Interdepartmental Team Cohesiveness

Our culture inspires information sharing between our departments and across The Lawton Standard family of companies.

Proactive Support You’ll Love

We proactively report order status changes and follow-up, in addition to our weekly reports.

Flexible to Meet Your Needs

Tell us what you need, and we will adapt including adjusting schedule dates, providing expedited shipping options and more.

Responsiveness

We respond to customer inquiries in less than 24 hours and deliver accurate quotes.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Our De Pere, WI facility can pour gray iron from 400 lbs. - 20,000 lbs. with the capability to pour up to 30,000 lbs. for low-volume requirements. The maximum casting size for this foundry is 130 in. x 130 in. x 59 in. tall. Our maximum part weight for ductile iron is 14,000 lbs.

Our Minster, OH facility can pour gray or ductile iron from 20 lbs. - 40,000 lbs. The maximum casting size for this foundry is 140 in. x 176 in. x 64 in. 

No. Our De Pere, WI and Minster, OH locations have different capabilities. View our What We Do page for more details.

We also have several sister companies with a wide variety of capabilities. View all Lawton Standard companies.

We pour various formulations of gray and ductile cast iron in a no-bake, furan sand system.

We do accept “transfer tooling.” Upon receipt of your tooling, we will perform a detailed inspection to report on the condition. We will dimensionally compare your tooling to your prints to see if there are any discrepancies. Repairs and modifications will be quoted as a result of this inspection to ensure the best possible match of the pattern to provide the print details. We will also include pricing for gating and rigging to adapt your tooling to our casting process.

We also offer full-pattern shop services, providing new tooling from wood or urethane for multiple-use quantities or styrofoam for one-time use applications.

Click here to learn more about our transfer tooling process.

As part of our LEAN culture, we are continually working to expand our capacity and modify our processes so we can be more responsive to our customers’ needs. At this time, we do have open capacity for both regularly scheduled projects (placeholders) and job shop projects.

Lead times are greatly affected by the amount of processing required to produce your casting. Factors including size, casting features, the number of cores, type of tooling, and other processing (paint, heat treatment) can have a significant impact on lead times. Our innovative scheduling approach enables us to be extremely responsive to most scheduling needs. Please contact us with your requirements to learn more.

Delivery improvement is dependent on available slots in our schedule. Our planning committee reviews projects in process and delivery schedules daily. This gives us the flexibility to respond to your changing needs and often enables us to improve on delivery timetables.

We are certified in ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, and ISO 45001:2018.

We have a full-service pattern shop for the construction and maintenance of all patterns that are utilized in our casting process.

Yes, our on-site machine shop can handle many of our customers’ needs. For more specialized needs, we partner with a comprehensive network of local and regional machine shops.

Please provide a model or legible print, weight and EAUs along with your material, quality and process specifications. We will quickly answer if your part is a fit for our process. Click here to send us information about your needs.

Our team responds to most requests for quotation within a week of receipt. If you require a faster response, please alert us to your needs so we can work with you to provide the best information available in the time frame you require.

Raw material costs can often be volatile and change in unpredictable ways. We use a surcharge to account for these changes allowing us to maintain a constant base price. The C.A. Lawton Co. surcharge is calculated based on actual invoice amounts paid to our vendors during a one-month period. We apply the amounts paid to our formulations to determine the surcharge for each specific grade produced. We break that down into a price per pound to apply to each individual part.

Our team will work with you to define and provide you with the level of pricing detail you require to properly budget for your project.

We offer a training course to educate attendees in many aspects of the foundry process. This highly-regarded course, Iron 101, combines classroom instruction with in-house tours of the pattern shop, foundry floor, and machine shop. This one-day course is held quarterly at our De Pere, WI facility.

How can we help?

Questions?