The launch marks the culmination of an 18-month development effort focused on understanding how customers interact with their equipment every day. Throughout the process, Ipsen gathered feedback from operators, maintenance personnel, and management teams to develop a platform that is both intuitive and capable of meeting the evolving needs of today’s heat treaters.
Before its public release, ICON was evaluated in demanding production environments, including a leading commercial heat treater and a global aerospace manufacturer. Feedback from both organizations helped refine the platform and confirmed its ability to deliver an intuitive user experience while supporting the high standards required in critical heat-treating applications.
Customers interested in learning more about ICON are encouraged to contact their Ipsen sales representative or email [email protected]. Additional information is available at ipsenicon.com.
The Diffusion Group of Companies has completed its acquisition of Hi-Tech Steel Treating, a long-established commercial heat-treating operation based in Saginaw, Michigan. The acquisition marks another important milestone in the group’s growth strategy and further strengthens its position in the North American heat-treating market.
Founded in 1983, Hi-Tech has become a trusted commercial heat-treating provider for manufacturers throughout Michigan and the surrounding region. The company offers a broad range of thermal-processing services, including annealing, carbonitriding, induction hardening, flame hardening, stress relieving, straightening, steam treating, and other specialized processes. Hi-Tech is ISO 9001:2015 certified and CQI-9 compliant, serving customers across automotive, manufacturing, tooling, heavy equipment, medical, and industrial sectors.
The acquisition reflects Diffusion’s approach of partnering with respected businesses that have strong cultures, skilled employees, loyal customers, and proven operating histories.
“Hi-Tech represents exactly the type of company we want to build alongside,” said Tim Thompson. “It has experienced people, deep customer relationships, and a history of doing challenging work well. We have tremendous respect for what the ownership group and employees have built over the past four decades, and we’re proud to carry that forward.”
Diffusion would like to acknowledge and thank the ownership group of Jim Stone, Kevin Stone, Tom McGrandy, and Chris Muscott for the trust they have placed in the organization. Their discipline and stewardship helped establish Hi-Tech as one of the region’s most respected commercial heat-treatment providers.
Operational continuity remains a priority. Hi-Tech’s employees, leadership team, customer relationships, and day-to-day operations will continue without disruption. The immediate focus is learning from the organization’s experience and identifying practical opportunities to strengthen the business over time.
Looking ahead, Diffusion intends to draw on the group’s collective operating experience to support Hi-Tech’s next stage of growth. The company’s established position in the Michigan manufacturing market, combined with the resources of the broader organization, creates opportunities to improve systems, expand capabilities, and continue delivering value to customers.
Building a North American Heat-Treating Platform
The acquisition of Hi-Tech Steel Treating represents another milestone in Diffusion Group’s strategy of acquiring and developing high-quality thermal-processing businesses. Rather than consolidating facilities or centralizing operations, Diffusion focuses on preserving the strengths of each company while creating value through shared expertise, stronger systems, targeted investment, and leadership development.
Diffusion seeks out companies that have earned customer trust, built strong community roots, and demonstrated a lasting commitment to doing the work well. By bringing experienced operators together under a common ownership structure, the group can provide additional resources while preserving the local identity and culture that made each business successful.
“Our vision is bigger than any single facility,” Thompson added. “There are many exceptional heat-treating businesses across North America that have been built by entrepreneurs and families over generations. We want to partner with owners who care deeply about their employees, customers, and legacy, and provide a home where those values can continue. Hi-Tech is an important step, and we expect it will not be the last chapter in Diffusion’s growth story.”
With operations now spanning British Columbia, Michigan, and New York, Diffusion continues to expand its footprint while maintaining a disciplined focus on technical execution, employee development, and durable value creation. Across the group, Diffusion is positioned better than ever to meet customers’ quality, delivery, and technical-support needs through a broader North American platform of specialized thermal-processing businesses. By combining local operating strength with shared expertise, ongoing investment in cutting-edge technology, stronger systems, and process intelligence, Diffusion can deliver better service, stronger quality control, and more consistent results for customers. Supported by a fleet of trucks capable of covering thousands of miles across regions, the group can respond with the reliability, reach, and delivery performance manufacturers depend on.
About Diffusion; The Diffusion Group is a privately held industrial holding company focused on building a North American platform of heat-treating, metallurgical, and thermal-processing businesses.
With the addition of Hi-Tech Steel Treating, the group’s operating companies now include:
Precision Heat Treat (PHT) – Surrey, British Columbia (established 1989). One of Western Canada’s leading commercial heat-treating providers, serving aerospace, defense, transportation, manufacturing, tooling, mining, and industrial customers.
Nitrera Technologies – Surrey, British Columbia (established 2012). A specialized provider of nitriding, metallurgical consulting, laboratory testing, process engineering, and advanced surface-treatment technologies.
Rochester Steel Treating Works (RSTW) – Rochester, New York (established 1932). One of the oldest commercial heat-treating operations in the northeastern United States, serving aerospace, defense, medical, automotive, tooling, and industrial customers.
Hi-Tech Steel Treating – Saginaw, Michigan (established 1983). A respected Midwest commercial heat treater offering annealing, carbonitriding, induction hardening, flame hardening, stress relieving, and specialty thermal processing services.
Together, these companies offer heat treating, nitriding, metallurgical services, laboratory analysis, process engineering, quality support, and specialized thermal-processing capabilities across Canada and the United States.
The addition of Hi-Tech expands Diffusion’s presence to facilities in British Columbia, Michigan, and New York, creating a cross-border group capable of supporting customers throughout North America.
The company continues to pursue partnerships with exceptional businesses that share its commitment to quality, reliability, technical excellence, and responsible stewardship.
(This Sale Was Facilitated by “The Monty Heat Treat News”)
CVI reported orders for multiple vacuum induction melting furnaces, as well as two large-format vacuum hot presses for aerospace filtration and advanced ceramics. The company also received orders for Sintervac furnaces used in tungsten carbide and nuclear fuel sintering, together with furnaces for the production of tungsten heavy alloys, nuclear space fuel and the heat treatment of titanium additively manufactured parts.
Additional orders included Testorr furnaces for the physical testing of hypersonic carbon fibre composites (CFCs) and four LF furnaces for processing advanced carbon and graphite materials at temperatures up to 3,000°C, nuclear fuel materials development, and the metal sintering of medical components.
Bookings also remained strong during the first two quarters of 2026, reportedly giving the company one of the largest order backlogs in its history.
Founded in 1954, Centorr Vacuum Industries is celebrating its seventy-second anniversary as a manufacturer of high-temperature vacuum and controlled-atmosphere furnaces. The company has an installed base of more than 7,000 machines worldwide. It also operates a fully staffed aftermarket field service group and an Applied Technology Center providing research and development support and toll production services.”
Visual Shop and Bluestreak Join Forces with Steelhead Technologies
Together, the three industry leaders bring decades of heat treating expertise to one platform built for margin and growth
“Calumet, MI – Steelhead Technologies announced today the acquisitions of Visual Shop and Bluestreak, two longstanding providers of job shop management and QMS software. Customers of all three companies now have access to next-generation technology to help them get ahead: an all-in-one system built on a digital production floor, with automation and AI built in to power margin and growth.
For years, Steelhead, Visual Shop, and Bluestreak have earned the trust of heat treating and metal finishing job shops across North America by delivering systems designed with the specific complexities job shops face in mind. Now these systems are joining forces. Customers are getting the best of each: the digital production floor, the industry knowledge, and the people who understand their business.
— Jeff Halonen, CEO/Co-Founder, Steelhead Technologies
Continued Investment in Heat Treating
Steelhead is accelerating its investment in heat treating to position heat treating job shops for the next generation of manufacturing, including investing in FedRAMP to meet the security and documentation standards CMMC compliance requires, and dedicating engineering, support, and product resources to fine-tune heat treating workflows such as furnace calibrations, operator certifications, sample testing, and sensor integrations. Customers will benefit from direct access to the people who know heat treating inside and out, drawing on the long-standing experience at Visual Shop and Bluestreak.
— Kevin Pluedeman, President of Cornerstone Systems (Visual Shop)
— Todd Wenzel, President and Founder of Bluestreak
— Mary Springer, Executive Vice President, ThermTech
Customer Perspective
“With Steelhead, if we need a job pulled for review in a Nadcap audit, we can look it up and have all the data right there. We don’t have to train someone with a background in metallurgy or heat treat to enter a job anymore; anyone can do it. That efficiency shows up everywhere: our lead times used to run a couple of weeks, now we’re down to ten days, and parts we used to store for ten to twelve days now move through in five to seven.”
— Vraj Shah, Quality Manager, Exactatherm
About Steelhead Technologies
Steelhead is the technology partner for heat treaters, metal finishers, and fabricators, providing an AI-powered ERP built to help job shops get ahead by powering margin and growth. Built with the production floor in mind, its ease of use enables real-time tracking of every process, giving management teams the data they need to make better decisions, faster. Learn more at gosteelhead.com.”
The world’s largest commercial heat treater, UK based “Bodycote PLC” released their 2026 interim results earlier this week-the complete results can be found at “Interim Results 2026”.
A very good summary of the results was provided by“Alliance News”-you can also find the article below;
The Macclesfield, England-based provider of heat treatment and specialist metallurgical technology services reported pretax profit of GBP41.2 million in the six months that ended June 30, up from GBP36.6 million year earlier.
Revenue advanced 3.3% to GBP381.2 million from GBP369.0 million, with core revenue, which excludes non-core sites that are part of the company’s ‘optimise’ programme, rising by 9.6% on-year to GBP372.0 million.
This programme was introduced in 2024 and framed as a way to improve the business by “closing sites, that were utilising older less efficient, and more carbon intensive technologies”. Bodycote extended the programme in July last year and at the end of last month, said it had announced all planned closures, most of which had already completed.
The board has approved an interim dividend of 7.2 pence per share, which represents an increase of 4.3% from 6.9p the previous year.
Bodycote noted “strong growth” in Aerospace & Defence, Industrial Gas Turbines, Medical and Semiconductors, which was “partly offset by continued weakness in Automotive, particularly in Europe”.
Looking ahead to all of 2026, the company left its guidance unchanged, targeting organic revenue growth and margin improvement, thanks in part to the ‘optimise’ programme, and in spite of an anticipated uptick in variable pay and growth investment costs.
In the second half, Bodycote is looking to make further strategic progress, though Chief Executive Jim Fairbairn cautioned that the pace of revenue growth is likely to moderate, “reflecting prior-year comparators”. Bodycote remains confident in its medium-term goals.
“We progressed well in the first half and have achieved results in line with our expectations. Organic growth was supported by strong demand across our target end markets, partly offset by the ongoing structural weakness in Western European Automotive,” noted CEO Fairbairn.
“We continue to execute on our ‘optimise, perform and grow’ strategy. In light of the success of the ‘optimise’ programme to-date, as well as continued challenges in some of our Automotive and Industrial regional markets, we are exploring the potential to expand the programme’s scope. In ‘perform’, we have rolled-out more advanced operational excellence tools, starting at four key ‘lighthouse sites’. In ‘grow’, the Spectrum acquisition has integrated well. We are continuing to progress with both organic investments and further M&A opportunities.
Our full year expectations are unchanged, albeit we are mindful of the current geopolitical and macroeconomic environment.”
Bodycote shares rose 1.0% to 695.84p each on Tuesday morning in London.”
Earlier this year “NTN USA” a supplier of bearings, constant velocity joints, and other precision industrial and automotive equipment announced that they would be “realigning” their USA operations “NTN Macomb Plant Remains Open as Company Streamlines North American Operations” (a summary can also be found below). The resulting plant closures mentioned below will in many cases mean the loss of heat-treating capacity as most of these facilities heat treat in house. As an example, the Hamilton, Alabama plant slated for closure has a large in-house heat treatment department which includes roller hearth and pusher furnaces. ‘
While it is unknown what the fate of the heat treatment equipment will be we would assume it is headed for auction-we can only hope for the sake of “NTN” that it is more successful than the recent closure of a “JTEKT North America Corporation” facility in Telford, TN “Bearing Facility Closure Kills Heat Treat Department“. In that case we have been led to believe that the two pusher lines sold at auction for a total of $3,000.00-not even scrap value.
“NTN USA announced last week a strategic realignment of its North American automotive and industrial manufacturing operations designed to improve efficiency while maintaining quality and customer delivery. NTN Bower Macomb, will remain open during and after the transformation.
According to an NTN press release, the realignment initiative means that NTN USA will consolidate and optimize production across several locations over the next 18–24 months. The Macomb plant will shift its focus to supporting the Industrial OEM and Industrial Aftermarket business segments, transferring automotive CVJ component production to other NTN locations.
Key Actions:
• NTN Bower Corporation, Macomb, Illinois: Plant will remain open. Macomb’s NTN will transition from automotive CVJ production to focus on Industrial OEM and Industrial Aftermarket business segments.
• NTN Bower Corporation, Hamilton, Alabama: Plant will ramp down operations and close over the next 18 months.
• American NTN Bearing Manufacturing (ANBM), Elgin, Illinois: Will consolidate axle bearing production within its campus and reorganize operations in its newest facility.
• NTN Driveshaft-Anderson, Inc. (NDA), Anderson, Indiana: CVJ shaft manufacturing plant will close over 18 months. CVJ plant remains fully operational.
• NTN Driveshaft Inc. (NDI), Columbus, Indiana: CVJ East Plant will close. CVJ West Plant and Forging Plant remain fully operational.”
The furnace remains on schedule to be fully commissioned and operational by September 2026.
This investment further expands Solar Atmospheres’ capabilities for processing large titanium components while reinforcing our commitment to providing advanced thermal processing solutions for the industry’s most critical applications.
For additional information about Solar Atmospheres, contact Mike Johnson at 855-934-3284 x2223, email at [email protected], and visit us at solaratm.com.
On a regular basis “The Monty Heat Treat News” looks at well-known individuals in the global heat treatment industry who have recently changed their career direction. For the week starting July 27, 2026 these are some individuals who fit that criteria;
Mario Ciampini. June 30th of this year “The Monty” had this news item about “Mr. Mario Ciampini”; “Heat Treat Industry Losing One of the “Great” Ones-Mario Ciampini”
Anybody that knows Mario knows he would not stay away from the industry for long-“The Monty” has learned that Mario is now a self-employed business consultant and we would assume that in this position he will remain involved in the heat treatment industry. This photo shows “Mario” and “Dale Montgomery” of “The Monty”.
Justin Henderson, Alcon Industries. According to this press release cast alloy supplier “Alcon Industries” of Cleveland, Ohio has a new President by the name of “Justin Henderson”. “Kevin Vadini has made the decision to step down from his position as President to pursue new professional opportunities. We thank Kevin for his service and wish him continued success in his future endeavors. Justin Henderson has accepted the role of President of Alcon Industries, where he is dedicated to driving strategic growth, operational excellence, and improved customer satisfaction. Justin joined Alcon in April 2025, serving with distinction as Director of Supply Chain and, most recently, Vice President of Sales and Supply Chain. With more than 20 years of experience leading operational improvements, Justin brings a deep passion for optimizing supply chains and maximizing operational excellence. He holds an MBA from Ferris State University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Baker College of Muskegon.”
Steven will continue to lead SSi’s West Coast operations while expanding his responsibilities to support their business development efforts across North America.
Throughout his time at SSi, Steven has developed a unique perspective through his extensive field experience, working closely with customers, engineering, and SSi operations teams. That experience gives him valuable insight into how their products are used in real-world applications and where opportunities exist to better serve Super System’s customers.
As Vice President of Business Development, Steven will play an important role in connecting customer needs with their research and development and engineering teams. He will help ensure SSi continues to deliver practical, competitive solutions while identifying new market opportunities and helping guide the evolution of their products and services.