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Harrison Machine Co. Profile
Charles Harrison formed Harrison Machine Co. in 1939 as a family operated machine shop. His first foundry machine was developed as a solution to a customer’s problem processing Oil Sand Cores in the late 1940’s.
With the development of Phenolic Coated Shell Sands in the early 1950’s a two station swing head type machine was designed for core making. Then in the early 1960’s a manually actuated shuttle type 2 Station machine with a stationary center blow section was developed with rollover capability to make hollow cores. One operator could efficiently produce cores from 2 tools at the same time, this concept was immediately accepted and has been the basis for all succeeding Harrison core machine designs.
By 1965 the Dual Station system had been automated using relay-logic controllers and by 1970 early versions of the PLC were adopted. As binder development progressed so did Harrison adding Hot-Box, Warm-Box, and Cold Box machines to the product line, all based on the proven successful Dual Station system.
Concurrent with core machine development and innovation was the development of Greensand Matchplate Mold Machine Systems. These were the first replacements for labor intensive manual mold making operations. At first only tight flask closed loop systems taking up large amounts of floor space were offered but their labor saving features made them popular and widely used.
Harrison as a company choose to keep their mold machine line focused on the job shop small and medium size foundries while new competitors developed bigger faster and more complex systems for large high volume production foundries. Eventually the HMC mold making system was condensed into a fully automatic flaskless small foot print machine the N-22 that easily and inexpensively replaces squeezers with minimal modifications to existing infrastructure and systems.
In 1998 the Harrison family sold the company to a holding company which brought in new management and encouraged innovation and development. Research showed the industry make up and core making needs had changed and that general core machine technology had not kept up. A program to reinvent the Dual Station Core Machine System was initiated with the goal to develop a new series of core machines, Shell and Cold Box, that provides a real Competitive Advantage to Harrison’s customers.
By 2008, under current ownership, the initial re-invention goals had been achieved Harrison now offers a full line of Cold Box Core Making Processes, Shell Core Making Processes, and Wam & Hot Box core machines with the most operator friendly features, highest productivity, even HMC Shell machines out perform most other Cold Box machines, best Process & Cost Control Capability, best Process Repeatability, highest Utilization capability, fastest Payback, and most importantly Lowest Cost-per-Core.
Today the Harrison Machine Co. believes the industry has to change in significant ways not just to survive but to become once again the world’s standard setting leaders for core making technology. In order to accomplish this we must question every practice and method currently employed; asking why we do it that way and what cost does that create. Then we must employ critical thinking to create new/better methods and practices together as an industry: foundries, researchers, suppliers, and equipment builders.
To help expedite availability, coordinate, and help with the development of future changes and improvements Harrison teamed up some time ago with several University researchers, foundries, industry advisors, and key consumables suppliers to bring together new relevant technologies on advanced practical machinery platforms that reliably produce castings in a more competitive, profitable way, and environmentally friendly way.
Recent improvements in our core machine technology and the introduction of the DMC system are just the initial fruits of this collaboration.