ESI : How do Rolls-Royce engineers make sure their designs are fully castable?

If Rolls-Royce engineers are in charge of parts design, their suppliers are in charge of defining the best possible manufacturing process. Often times, manufacturing defects or "nonconformance" are found late in the manufacturing development process. Rework is needed, and sometimes even, design engineers must go back to the drawing board just when parts production should have been ready to start - this resulting in avoidable costs and delays, impacting the cost-effectiveness of product development. This situation is even more likely to arise as Rolls-Royce design engineers try to come up with bold designs to improve the sustainability aspects of aircrafts - moving away from conservative designs and thereby being unable to rely on experience.

In line with its Digital First approach, Rolls-Royce engineers are shifting away from physical try-out towards a digital workflow based on ESI's casting simulation software ProCAST. Nick Calcutt, Materials and Process Modelling Engineer at Rolls-Rolls in Derby, UK, calls it the "smart customer" approach.