February 2026 Volume 8

FORGING RESEARCH

Industry Impact Overall industry benefits for the project will see a hot part non-contact system that is deployable and repeatable, a reduction in production lead times, scrap reduction, increases to press utilization leading to higher volumes, all backed by the real time data for a forging producer on production parts going out to a customer. In terms of progress to date, the project is still in early development, however all engineering activities have kicked off, along with initial prototype design concepts. Next steps will see the project building out and testing the prototype, as well as developing the thermal calibrations needed to evaluate the part hot. When asked if there was anything else to add, Rizkallah stated “MAS is very excited to bring hot part inspection to the forging industry, which will enable forgers to reap the financial benefits of additional press uptime and faster part measurements for their process.” Funding was secured for the collaborative initiative through the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) Program and the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Materiel Readiness (ODASD-MR). Matta Rizkallah CEO Manufacturing Automation Systems LLC Email: mrizkallah@mfgautosys.com

Even though the project is just beginning, the overall objectives are clear. MAS will develop a non-contact hot part inspection system with specific considerations for forging environments through production trial shop floor demonstrations. This will leverage the existing MAS QC Plus® Platform, as Rizkallah mentioned “QC Plus® is our existing intelligent automation software platform and ecosystem, which has enabled us and our system integrator partners to perform robotic inspection and metrology in industry.” When asked about how long this platform has been used in a production environment, Rizkallah said, “You know we started MAS back in 2003 and QC Plus® was born in 2020, we have got years behind us, and many deployments in the field. So, including hot part inspection into our QC Plus® platform aligns very well with our company goals and product roadmap.” The prototype will be installed at the partner forging producer facility, gathering production data over several weeks before refining and integrating to improve the operation. In discussions with the team, the partner forging producer is both excited to begin and willing to support testing and feedback over the course of the project, mainly due to their high production volumes and being the same organization that suggested MAS pursues non-contact hot part inspection in the first place. The eventual goal for this project is full commercialization once the transition capabilities of the system have been fully validated. Transition is critical for the project to succeed, and why MAS has been working very closely with all teams from the start. “We want operators using it, and to achieve that, we need to get their hands on it and get their real feedback. We want to learn what works and what does not work in the field. That is how we will ensure transition.” Rizkallah states, adding to that, he says, “Our whole business history has been about transition since our inception in 2003,” Rizkallah emphasizes. “Everything we design and build and put into production must work at 3 a.m. on any factory floor anywhere on the planet, not just in controlled environments. That has been our history.”

Dekland D. H. Barnum, PMP Technical Director Forging Industry Association Phone: 216-781-6260 Email: dekland@forging.org

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