Connecting the Dots to Approach Optimisation, Not Just Efficiency:
An Excellent Resource to Gain Impressive Productivity and
Capability Improvements

Jerome Fourmann¹,Richard Dickson², Paul Robbins² and Craig Werner³

¹Rio Tinto Aluminium, Chicago, Illinois, USA
²Castool Tooling Systems, Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada
²Werner Extrusion Solutions LLC, Lake Forest, Illinois, USA

Used with permission from the Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Aluminum Extrusion Technology Seminar (ET ’24), published by the Extrusion Technology for Aluminum Profiles Foundation and Aluminum Extruders Council.

Abstract. The main audience of this paper are the management and other team members leading and operating extrusion companies and operations. The extrusion process and industry are relatively simple to understand and inexpensive to enter. The ability to serve markets is often controlled by the equipment, process and technical capabilities possessed; many companies possess sufficient levels of some but are lacking other key “connective tissue” that allows achievement of customer requirements and extruder needs. Uptime / Recovery / Productivity / Costs are important but gaps in capabilities or understanding key linkages between elements results in suboptimal performance. This paper addresses many key requirements from data to process, tooling and others required to achieve efficient operations and to progress from local optimisations to true global optimisations, moving the company from average toward “Superextruder” performance. Data and technical understanding are core achievements and once achieved, it is far too easy to slide backwards by losing just a few key aspects. The paper documents many key aspects like temperature, flow stress and pressures through the lens of data and discloses why excellent tooling or processes alone cannot lead to excellence.