When NOT to Bring Heat Treating In-House-A Case Study
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Do the volumes justify the high costs of installing a heat treat department?
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Does the manufacturer want to add a process which in many cases they have little to no experience with?
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Do the benefits of controlling quality and “turn around time” by bringing heat treat in house outweigh the initial investment?
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Does a manufacturer really want to bring what is quite often a dirty, hot furnace into their manufacturing facility?
The team at “The Monty Heat Treat News” has fielded this question many times over the years-the topic popped up again this past week when we were approached by a US manufacturer who asked exactly that question “should I invest in my own heat treat department due to long turnaround times by my local heat treaters”? With his permission and our agreement that no names would be mentioned this is the manufacturers dilemma and our response:
“Manufacturer: I have some interest in bringing heat treating in house. The parts are run in batches of about 200 lbs. maximum. Some parts are 8610, need a .030 case hardened and quenched and tempered RC42 to RC60 depending on the application.
One group of parts are 4340 that get carbo-nitrided .005 deep and ideally need marquenched RC48-54 to reduce distortion in some reamed holes. These parts have been difficult to get done consistently and have a high minimum charge making us carry a large inventory of parts.”
“The Monty”; What is the value of the commercial heat treating per year”
“Manufacturer; With the scrap costs on the 4340 parts we are over $50,000 per year and it limits our ability to expand some product lines. Some work we have to either turn down or charge $350.00 for 2 lbs. of parts and wait 2 to 4 weeks to get them back. I do know a couple of companies that have similar problems because the heat treaters in this area do not have equipment for low volume parts. If we need an non standard process or case depth we have paid $500.00 to get 5 lbs. of parts in two weeks or waited 6 weeks at $350.00.”
“The Monty”; In this particular case the answer is absolutely, 100% clear-do not bring heat treating in house! The general rule of thumb is that to make economic sense a manufacturer can only afford to invest in equipment what they are sending out to a commercial heat treater over the course of a year. In this case, that number is $50,000 and there is no way in this situation that they will find the equipment they need for $50,000.00. This of course does not take into account the learning curve of heat treating, the amount of space required and the need to hire somebody to run the department.
Our advice? Find another heat treater who specializes in small lot sizes.-there are plenty of them out there.
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