“McGard Industries” manufactures anti-theft devices like lug nuts, wheel locks, and marine security products, and is a leading manufacturer of mechanical anti-theft devices. The firm maintains a very large, clean and modern manufacturing facility in Orchard Park, New York, USA which is fitting as the company products can be considered “the Cadillac” in  terms of quality and reliability.

Historically “McGard” has handled their heat-treating requirements through a combination of in-house furnaces and outsourcing to local commercial heat treaters.

In 2015 “McGard” started looking at “options” to their heat-treating department to make sure they had the absolute best technology available, this included looking at mesh belt furnaces lines (which was the technology used by their local heat treater) and LPC (low pressure vacuum carburizing). When all was said and done the company decided on vacuum carburizing and the investment was made in an almost brand-new system being sold by “Caterpillar”

The system was installed and upgraded in 2021 and shortly thereafter testing was completed and limited production started. However shortly thereafter the entire project was abandoned and the company made the decision to outsource most of their heat-treating needs again to a local commercial heat treater who processes the parts in a mesh belt furnace line.

While the reasons for this change of course are not entirely clear our belief is that while the LPC technology did produce very good results, some of the benefits were not required for this particular product and that outsourcing the work made more economic sense and allowed the company to focus on their “core competencies”.

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