“If you ask about, is there a unique USP, you have to go as far as to give a bold statement: Is there a justification for the existence of European diecast industry?” Raphael Heilig said.
“We probably in the European diecast industry can't price out competition.”
Instead, he advocates for a stronger focus on time and quality - the other two points of the so-called „Magic Triangle“ of manufacturing. “That's also where we as a software company focus on: giving our customers a tool to shorten time to market, enhance the quality in an earlier stage of the product development process.”
In Heilig’s view, this shift requires a complete mindset change - from seeing problems to identifying possibilities.
“We make transparent in what a situation we're in and then get to work.”
From Gut Feeling to Measurable Action
Heilig is a strong proponent of data-driven transformation. “We have to focus on topics like artificial intelligence and even easier: big data,” he said. “Doing something good with your data can be done right here, right now.”
But to do so, companies must develop meaningful KPIs. “If you don't do so, you're like a person that tries to lose weight and doesn't have a scale and doesn't know about nutrition facts,” he explained. “Yeah, good luck. I mean, the only thing that you can do is eat less than yesterday - but you don't have a real goal.”
Heilig points to industries like digital marketing, where methods are constantly compared and improved through measurable indicators. That same logic, he says, must now come to die casting.
The Market Cockpit
One of Heilig’s key proposals is the creation of a market cockpit – a centralized dashboard that visualizes trade dynamics, pricing benchmarks, supply bottlenecks and more. And this isn’t a far-fetched vision. “This data... belongs to everyone. It just has to be collected in a meaningful way, digested to be displayed in a way that it creates value,” Heilig says.
A look at other industries shows: Such a system could include customs duties and trade barriers (such as CBAM or US-China tariffs), inflation and currency developments in supplier countries, and freight and container prices. It could also track CO₂ costs and regulatory trends in Europe and abroad. Foundries could access data on tool availability, lead times, and scheduling, along with information on the number and scale of new development projects across regions or customer sectors. Additionally, anonymized internal benchmarks on quoting speed, project duration, and rejection rates could inform operational improvement.
The VDMA association, for example, offers companies in the mechanical and plant engineering sector the “Business Climate Cockpit”, a real-time tool that anonymously maps sentiment, capacity utilization and order trends across the industry. Volkswagen uses the “Supply Chain Control Tower” to monitor global risks, transport routes and material availability.
“Why should every smaller foundry or every smaller mold maker do the job on their own?” Heilig asked.
“The market is too small for a third entity to step up and the task is too big to be tackled by a single company. Why not tackle it with an association like the Euroguss Executive Circle and try to install something that creates value and gives a head up against the competitor in joint force?”
