Largest North American Captive Heat Treats-“Dauch Corp.”
This week we will have a brand new name on our list of the “15 Largest Captive Heat Treats-North America”–“Dauch Corporation”. You can certainly be forgiven if the name doesn’t ring a bell-previously the company was known as “American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM)” according to this press release;“DETROIT, Jan. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings, Inc. (the “Company”) today announced that on January 23, 2026, the Company changed its name to Dauch Corporation (“Dauch”) by filing an amendment to its Certificate of Incorporation (the “Amendment”) with the Secretary of State of the State of Delaware (the “Name Change”). The Name Change and the Amendment became effective at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time on January 26, 2026.”
Where will “Dauch Corp.” be ranked on our list of the “15 Largest Captive Heat Treats-North America”? We will tell you later this week in the meantime we leave you with this summary of the “Dauch” facility in Silao, Mexico;
“Dauch Corporation” (Formerly Axle & Manufacturing Holdings), Silao, Mexico. In 2012 auto parts supplier American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM) formally opened a new plant in the city of Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico. Since that time this facility has grown to encompass roughly 10 different plants, 7 of which offer heat treatment. This posed an issue for “The Monty” in terms of ranking-does this qualify as a single location heat treat? At the end of the day, we decided that as this is one complex it will for our purposes be considered a single location. The amount of heat treating in this complex is staggering, 6 pusher furnaces (2 single row, 2 two row and 2 four row), almost 20 batch IQ units, 36″ X 48″ X 36″, several normalizing lines, two mesh belt carburizing lines and multiple tempering units, washers and endo generators. For sheer throughput in terms of pounds per hour this has to be one of the largest captive heat treats in North America.
