VCST https://bmtdrivesolutions.com/  is a division of the BMT Group of Belgium, a company which supplies gear drives around the world. Our interest in the company stems from the fact that their locations in Belgium and Mexico both have substantial in house heat treat departments which are being joined by their location in Changzhou, China which has just installed their own heat treat department. Below we have a press release and photos from the company announcing the new department in China. Below this we have two photos and a summary of their heat treating capabilities in Mexico, this is the result of our visit earlier this year.

“VCST has been producing high-quality parts for the automotive sector in China for nearly ten years now. Recently, our business line rail has started to produce gears in our Changzhou plant as well. Usually, these gears are larger than the ones that are produced for the automotive market. That is why we have installed a separate heat treatment installation in this plant. As we speak, the installation is still being tested and being prepared for use. Upon completion, Changzhou will have its own in-house heat treatment installation just like our plants in Belgium and Mexico.

Apart from being able to process larger gears, there were other reasons for installing an in-house heat treatment installation. Larger gears produced for the railway market tend to be more complex. Therefore, this new installation gives us increased control and responsibility in the production of gears for rolling stock. Finally, there will also be increased efficiency as we will be able to compare gears more easily before and after hardening them. This will provide us with useful information to make adaptations before the hardening process and, in turn, deliver gears of an even higher quality.

The manufacturer of the installation is already well-established within BMT Drive Solutions as they have already provided the heat treatment installations for our plants in Belgium and Romania. For our plant in Changzhou, they provided a license for a Chinese company to build their design. During and after the building stage, visits were scheduled to check up on the progress made. However, the coronavirus pandemic disturbed that idea causing the check-ups to happen online. The time difference between China and Europe made this especially challenging. In the end though, the entire process was finished rather smoothly.

As it stands, 1 furnace has already been approved meaning we can start focussing on the heat treatment of railway parts produced in our VCST plant in Changzhou. The in-house heat treatment installation in Changzhou is a source of great enthusiasm for all our colleagues. With this new installation, they will now be able to deliver top-quality service to rolling stock operators in China as well.”

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March 18/2020. “VCST is a division of the BMT Group of Belgium, a company which supplies gear drives around the world. Out interest with the company today is in their Leon, Mexico facility which we visited just over a week ago. This is a gear company, a gear company which supplies the automotive, rail and industrial markets and who heat treat their products in house. It should come as no surprise to anybody that company chose the most common and versatile style of furnace in the world to do their heat treating-standard batch IQ furnaces. The firm has 5 batch IQ furnaces with working dimensions of 36″X 48″ X 36″ all gas fired with endothermic atmospheres. In the past the company has had some requirements for press quenching however as we observed they have never actually brought this in house. What we saw was a clean, well run company overall with a quite impressive heat treating department. In one of these pictures we see on the left Juan Gutierrez and on the right Salvador Murillo, General Manager of SSi, Mexico.”

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