Oskar Frech GmbH & Co. KG.

The story begins on March 1, 1949: that's when the toolmaker Oskar Frech founded his own company – in classic style: in the basement of his Schorndorf home – and produced dies for his diecasting customers. In 1959, the hot chamber diecasting machine was introduced. His son and successor Ing. Wolfgang Frech joined the family business in 1965 and continued to advance his father's fundamental ideas: he developed the first cold chamber diecasting machine, which quickly became FRECH's second core product. For more than 15 years, the FRECH corporate group - which includes 20 subsidiaries and branches around the world - has been managed by Dr. Ing. Ioannis Ioannidis. Today, FRECH is the global market leader in diecasting machines for the production of mass-produced parts made of zinc, magnesium and aluminum. What's more, the FRECH company, which has now grown into a corporate group with more than 800 employees, can supply its customers with nearly everything they need for diecasting.

• Decarbonization, with the goal of reducing CO2, FRECH develops solutions e.g. in melting operations and process control.

• FRECH has invested a lot in digitalization in recent years in order to intelligently link data from production. With a high level of interpretive competence, the knowledge gained is used for effective and sustainable production processes.

• Considering the demographics and the impact on the shortage of skilled workers, FRECH relies on support through technology and continuously develops new assistance systems to support the production process.

Under the motto "green & clean", FRECH is working on the development of resource-saving and more energy-efficient products to enable foundries to make the technology transition. With "clean", Frech points to the need for an attractive working environment in foundries in the future in order to provide the necessary talent for 3-shift operation to attract the necessary talent.

A standard alloy consists of 95% zinc which can be obtained completely from waste. The ingot material is melted in the energy-saving furnace of the die casting machine. With FRECH's newly designed insulation strategy, 40% savings are achievable. The patented FDS® casting system with the actively controlled melt valve keeps the melt at the very front of the nozzle. This virtually eliminates the 1st phase and thus saves about 10% of the drive energy. Not accounted for are quality improvements that reduce scrap.

Combined with an FGS® mold where the casting runs are reduced to a minimum, further energy savings result from the reduction of 40-60% of the remelt material.

This example shows how FRECH is leading the way to achieve immediate savings that everyone can afford. However, it is not enough to achieve the energy saving goals with complex high-tech ideas, which in many places would excite mainly young foundry professionals and might make the regular staff rather skeptical. That would be too simplistic and probably not productive either.
The balancing act of bringing high-tech into a foundry and still making it controllable was the starting signal for FRECH to develop sophisticated assistance systems that support the operating personnel in achieving the best possible settings.
This is FRECH's consistent thinking in terms of production so that "green = clean" can become reality.