Since 1979, Wilkast has been a leader in providing precision and cosmetic aluminum and zinc die castings. They serve customers in the automotive, motorcycle, office furniture, appliance, and agriculture industries. In addition to their cast and trim operations, they have in-house capabilities for CNC machining, light assembly, and polishing/sanding of cast parts.
Image Credit: DÜRR NDT GmbH & Co. KG
Wilkast also provides program management and various applied finish services, and ship products throughout North America and to Asia. Wilkast employs modern machining techniques and monitors production output. They have an ISO 9001:2015 certified QMS.
Wilkast is in Grand Rapids Michigan and produces zinc and aluminum die castings used in the automotive industry as well as snowmobile manufacturing.
Wilkast announced that they recently have received Steelcase 2024 Premier Supplier Status, and a 2023 “Supplier of Excellence” award from Polaris. These titles are awarded to the top performing suppliers at both Steelcase and Polaris.
Recently, working with Lake X-ray of Dowagiac, Michigan, Wilkast added Digital X- ray inspection to their facility. The equipment allows Wilkast to move beyond visual inspection and look at the internal features of the castings.
The X-ray cabinet from Lake X-ray is fitted with a high-resolution flat panel detector and the X-ray software D-Tect X from DÜRR NDT.
According to Wilkast, the images from the new system are much clearer than those from the previous outside provider. Scott Fisher, Quality Manager at Wilkast says having the system now allows them to bid on jobs they could not previously bid so, creating new work opportunities. The system allows them to look at critical points on castings prior to machining, thus eliminating labor. Scott also said there is a saving when inspecting parts from a customer since the parts do not all have to be scraped as the defects are easily found.
The long-term goal is to reduce scrap and increase profits through time and labor
NDT Webinar: Computed Radiography (CR) vs Digital Detector Arrays (DDA) / Digital Radiography in NDT
Video Credit: DÜRR NDT GmbH & Co. KG