Port Huron, Michigan, USA is home to one of four global commercial heat treat facilities owned and operated by AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group of the Netherlands. AMG is a worldwide company with approximately 3,000 employees but our interest in the company is focused primarily on the heat treating division. ALD HT headquarters are located in Hanau, Germany from where it oversees the four heat treatment facilities; ALD TT, Port Huron, MI, USA, ALD TT Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, ALD Vacuheat, Limbach-Oberfrohna, Germany and ALD HTS, Suzhou, China which opened September, 2021.

Recently “The Monty Heat Treat News” had the opportunity to visit the Port Huron plant-the first visit since 2019 and we saw a number of changes. This facility was established in 2006 and currently has 4 ModulTherm systems (manufactured by an ALD sister division) with a total of 24 treatment chambers, 2 Dual chamber furnaces and a fairly recent addition, 3 nitriding furnaces. With this equipment the company can offer vacuum carburizing (long the mainstay of this location), tempering, gas nitriding, ferritic nitro carburizing (FNC) and another new addition Cryogenic heat treating. With over 50 employees the company can heat treat up to 60-70 tons/day of transmission components.

Being in Michigan, the automotive capital of the world, ALD has always been almost exclusively automotive based, automotive transmission based would be a more apt description. While they will continue to concentrate on the auto market in the future the company under the direction of Jim Muenzenberger, Sr. Vice President, America’s is looking at widening the customer and product base and the results are apparent. Our visit showed two new processes, cryogenic treatment and 3 new nitriding systems which will compliment the firm’s vacuum carburizing expertise. Already you can see the results in the form of a number of new customer parts.  

Our hosts for the tour were Jim Muenzenberger and Ms. Kelly Peters, Vice President Operations both of whom very proudly pointed out that ALD TT has received the “General Motors Supplier Quality Excellence Award” for many years running. In addition they also pointed out that ALD has now processed over 1 billion parts with 0 field ppm’s. A tour through this 85,000 square foot facility will clearly show guests that yes this company deserves to be one of the 50 largest commercial heat treaters in North America.

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Jim Muenzenberger, Kelly Peters, Ron Smith

 Gord Montgomery, Kelly Peters