Cast metal components are not items that are commonly bought out of catalogs; most often they are tailor-made objects, designed and produced to the specific needs of a particular customer.  As such, cast components cannot and should not be treated as low-value, high-volume secondary commodity items, where price is the sole purchase criteria.

Cast components should be considered high-value manufacturing products, where the foundry is an extension of the buyer's manufacturing capability involving long-term relationships and open, on-going communication at all levels. As high-value items, the purchasing criteria for cast components include a balance of quality, cost, service and delivery.

Many OEM component buyers recognize that a carefully considered purchasing policy is the key to "best-value" procurement of metal castings. The policy should define the buyer-seller relationship, based on the following principles:

• long-term relationships based on shared benefits and best value for all parties;
• "qualified" cast component suppliers who meet production quality standards, deliver on schedule, provide expertise and knowledge to support component design and improvement and provide "best-value" pricing;
• open and continuous communication at executive, purchasing and technical levels to support concurrent engineering/design, design for manufacturability and continuous improvement.