”Nitrex, a global provider of fully integrated surface treatment solutions, has announced that G-M Enterprises will be making its official market debut under the Nitrex banner as of January 2022. For the past two years, Nitrex and G-M Enterprises have worked closely together and have reaped the benefits of sharing experiences, skills, and values. With over 30 years’ experience and a strong market presence, G-M Enterprises has earned the reputation as a leading technological supplier of vacuum furnaces, servicing customers in the aerospace, power generation, energy, and commercial heat-treating industries.
As a global company with a market presence in over 55 countries, we are committed to our customers and partners. This new brand integration will allow you to benefit from a globally recognized brand, synonymous with premium quality in the surface treatment industry, and three complementary business units dedicated to sharing their technological knowledge and expertise with you.
“As the only integrated global solutions provider, Nitrex has the experience and expertise required to keep pace with our customers and meet the market’s evolving needs and expectations,” says Jean-Francois Cloutier, Nitrex CEO. “It allows the so-called synergy effect to be used more fully. Going forward, G-M Enterprises products will be marketed under the Nitrex brand and will expand our international presence by leveraging the resources, expertise, and capital of Nitrex. These advancements will deliver more value to our customers for years to come.” This new brand integration will be official starting January 4, 2022.”
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January 8th, 2021 a very remarkable individual passed away, Mr. Frank Hasenfratz founder of auto parts company Linamar. Linamar has been mentioned many times over the years on “The Monty Heat Treat News” as one of the largest captive heat treaters in North America. This obituary makes for fascinating reading as it shows how Frank built the company from nothing to become an international manufacturer.
“Frank Hasenfratz, a Hungarian immigrant who built Linamar Corp. into a $5-billion auto-parts company from a startup venture in his garage, died Saturday at the age of 86. Mr. Hasenfratz, who was executive chairman of the company at his death, was surrounded by his family, the company said in a statement. The cause of death was cancer, the statement said. “It was his vision and unrelenting drive that enabled us to build the company that Linamar is today,” said his daughter, Linda Hasenfratz, who has served as the company’s chief executive officer since she replaced her father in 2002.
“He leaves a tremendous legacy on the Canadian business landscape, changed the lives of so many, and provided careers, livelihoods and opportunities for thousands of people. He inspired and taught so many, myself most profoundly, and his spirit will live on in each of us as we continue to build the legacy of Linamar.” The company said its board of directors has a succession and renewal plan in place for the executive chair position “which will be implemented in the coming weeks.”
As a young man in Hungary, Mr. Hasenfratz was training as a technical officer in the army when the Soviets roared in and crushed the country’s 1956 uprising. Realizing it was prudent to leave the country, he fled to Austria and then went on to Italy, where he worked as a translator inrefugee camps. He moved on to Le Havre, the French port. There he met some sailors who told him he could get passage to North America if he was willing to work on their freighter. Mr. Hasenfratz signed on. The freighter docked in Quebec City, where an immigration officer boarded and asked Mr. Hasenfratz to identify himself. “I told him that I was a Hungarian refugee,” Mr. Hasenfratz told The Globe and Mail in a 2005 interview. “It took him five or 10 minutes and he gave me immigration status, including $5 to spend. I filled out the paper, he said, ‘Sign here,’ and ‘Welcome to the country.'”
Mr. Hasenfratz ended up working on a farm near Guelph, Ont. His employer drove him into town each day so he could look for a job in his real line of work, tool-and-die making. Within weeks, he landed a job with a company making components for the Avro Arrow project, the attempt to build a Canadian interceptor jet that was infamously cancelled by the Diefenbaker government. Soon Mr. Hasenfratz was working in the machine shop of a firm whose products included fuel pumps for Ford Motor Co. Almost a quarter of the pumps were defective, which so frustrated Mr. Hasenfratz that he quit the company and landed the contract to supply the pumps himself. It was a bold move for a young breadwinner with two small children. But the auto pact came into effect, and he started getting more contracts out of Detroit. His auto parts business took off. Linamar, founded formally in 1966, took its name from Mr. Hasenfratz’s daughters Linda and Nancy and wife Margaret. It went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1986 and began a global expansion in the 1990s. A series of acquisitions expanded its geographic reach and its number of product lines.
Today, Linamar has 26,000 employees in 60 manufacturing locations, 12 research-and-development centres and 25 sales offices in 17 countries in North and South America, Europe and Asia. In addition to a wide range of auto parts and components, Linamar also makes lifts for the aerial work platform industry and agricultural harvesting equipment. Over the past 12 months, it recorded $6.7-billion in sales and nearly $500-million in profit. At Friday’s stock market close, investors valued the company at just more than $5.1-billion. Mr. Hasenfratz served as chairman of the company’s board for 55 years.
Mr. Hasenfratz was honoured as the Canadian Entrepreneur of the Year, inducted into the Canadian Manufacturing Hall of Fame and the Canadian Business Hall of Fame, and was appointed to the Order of Canada. He donated to numerous philanthropic causes in Guelph and surrounding Southwestern Ontario, including the Guelph General Hospital, University of Western Ontario, St. Joseph’s Foundation and the local performing arts. Mr. Hasenfratz was predeceased by his wife Margaret Hasenfratz. He leaves behind his daughter Linda and son-in-law Ed and their four children, as well as daughter Nancy and son-in-law Mark. In its statement, Linamar said “we will continue to live by Frank’s words to strive to continuously improve, act quickly and decisively, set goals and track progress and always ‘Do What We Do Best, Better.’ “
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Our good friend Mr. Peter Schweighofer, CEO of Cieffe one of the largest furnace builders in Italy recently offered this interview with an Italian publication. We felt it interesting enough that we include it today. CIEFE offers most heat treating technologies and this includes vacuum furnace, an example of which is below.
“ If we’re not driven by customers, neither will our cars, ” argued the longtime engineer Ford. A concept that perfectly summarizes the importance of combining the customization of industrial products with the development of solutions designed for a wide audience. It is precisely these principles that today guide Cieffe Thermal Systems , an Italian company leader in the production of furnaces for the treatment of metallurgical products. The company puts innovation and attention to detail at the center of its production process, with the aim of automating a series of fundamental processes for the sector. We talked about this philosophy with CEO Peter Schweighofer, who illustrated the values and future prospects that distinguish this successful company.
How was the Cieffe Thermal Systems business model born?
Cieffe is active in the metalworking industry as a manufacturer of furnaces for the heat treatment of metallurgical products. It is a sub-sector that has not seen major technological changes or new customer needs emerge in the last few decades. Rather, what changed was our approach to the market. The company has always offered a very wide range of products, sometimes without developing a clear and distinct focus. In fact, Cieffe products were designed and sold on customer request. In defining the new strategy, and in adopting the existing business model accordingly, the challenge was to make the right changes to aim for a more dynamic final market environment and shift the scope from a pure pull-market to a pull-and-push approach.
A real revolution. What have your core values been over the years?
We have defined five criteria that are part of our new integrated business model to address the anticipated challenges. First of all, to focus on core competencies and reduce the product range. At the same time we have implemented an adequate IT infrastructure, which also includes an ERP platform at the enterprise level. Another priority has been to standardize and increase the modularization of key components used in a number of our products. We understood that innovation is not only that developed through internal research, but also that conceived through fruitful collaborations with other suppliers. Finally, we have increased awareness in our work, looking for solutions and changes to enter new markets.
By following these principles, what allows you to distinguish yourself from competitors?
We constantly try to help the customer integrate a fully automated and custom designed heat treatment process into his production chain.
The pandemic has put a great deal of Italian industry to the test. What development and relaunch plans have you identified for your company?
Integrated IT solutions and virtual communication have been two key criteria for customers and we believe they will remain the center of attention. It is important to understand whether services and products can be adapted to better address the new demand curves. Furthermore, in the last year the electric car trend has undergone a significant acceleration, which requires us to offer a similar model in our product proposal.
What interventions do you expect from the government to support the mechanical sector?
There are three main challenges, of which the provision of funds is the most important, followed by the adaptation of structural changes within the company to this ‘new normal’. Finally, the incentive to invest in new technologies or at least to adapt old and outdated production equipment to current standards should not be underestimated. All of these aspects address supply and demand equally and will get a positive feedback loop in the ecosystem.
Young people have also proved to be a central resource in this delicate moment of transition. Did it also happen in Cieffe?
Absolutely yes! We have identified several areas where there is a sizable age gap, where the skilled workforce will retire within the next five years. The transfer of know-how is a strategic element for the continuation of the success of our company. However, we are facing two challenges: young people don’t have the same motivation to travel abroad and stay away from home for more than a week or two. Furthermore, it is difficult to find young people willing to work in Colle Umberto because this area offers less attractive infrastructures and does not offer a wide range of leisure activities compared to cities like Padua or Milan.
Together with young people, the female component in the company is also often the subject of debate in some sectors. How much is present in your company?
Currently, 18% of our workforce is female. Except for one resource, all are active in historically more ‘feminine’ positions such as sales, marketing, human resources or administration. We do not have a stated goal to achieve, but we believe we can maintain a balance of 15-20%. In general, it is only the lack of available or suitable profiles for production, engineering and other tasks that motivates this limited percentage.
How do you see your company five years from now?
We aim to become a partner of choice for fully automated heat treatment processes, particularly in the transfer of manufacturing know-how from our European customer base to the Asian market. This is a challenge on which we focus with great strength.
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The Dow product line is now available on the Hubbard-Hall eCommerce site. Increasing digital offerings allows for competitive pricing, 24/7 ordering and product information at the touch of a button.
Dow brand heat transfer fluids arecost effective, propylene glycol products thatoffer excellent stability and high temperature process heating and coolingfor manufacturing. Inhibitors in Dow glycol-fluids are formulated to protect against corrosion and scaling that can lead to costly maintenance and expenses. Dow products are non-toxic and available at full concentrate or diluted to fit your system.
DOWTHERM is widely used within the HVAC industry wherever low freezing water-based heat transfer fluids are needed.
DOWFROST is propylene glycol that also contains food grade corrosion inhibitors. It is made to conform to FDA CFR 21 and NSF guidelines.
“Our main goal in expanding online services through the eCommerce site, Customer Portal and chat capabilities, is to constantly improvecustomer engagement.” stated Jodie Menze, Customer Service Manager.
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An interesting finding popped up during our search to find the 10 largest single location captive heat treaters in North America and that finding is vacuum carburizing. We knew setting out that the largest would be heavily weighted in favor of automotive suppliers, what we didn`t realize was how significant the amount of vacuum carburizing (LPC) was-lets give you some brief background.
The history of vacuum carburizing is a long and distinguished one where it has found the most acceptance was in the heat treatment of automotive transmission gears. We have long considered Stackpole (a powdered metal supplier of gears) to be the first North American company to really capitalize on this and that is almost 30 years ago (incidentally the company still has a substantial VC department at their location in Canada). Since those beginnings the technology has grown substantially, especially in gear applications and the final result is what we are seeing today in our initial suggestions for the largest, single location captive heat treaters in North America.
We won`t keep you in suspense; Initial research shows that each of these three locations will probably end up on our list of the largest-note that all 3 produce automotive transmission components;
GKN Driveline, Newton, NC, USA
Ford, Sharonville, Ohio, USA
ZF Transmissions, Newton, NC, USA
Without offering too many details we can say that each has over 30 VC chambers are related furnaces. Stay tuned.
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We regret to mention the passing of Jim Barnard, a long time heat treater who was the President & Founder of furnace builder Ionex in Michigan, USA. Ionex was one of just 2 or 3 North American furnace builders who ever offered Ion (Plasma) Nitriders. An example of one of his units can be found in this photo which was taken at Thermal Modification Technologies in Oregon, USA.
“Lewis James “JIM” Barnard was born Nov. 22, 1946 in Petoskey MI to Lewis J. Barnard and Lois V. Healey Berger, growing up in East Jordan, Saginaw and Lansing, graduating from Eastern High School in Lansing and taking classes at Lansing Community College and Michigan State. Graduated from MI Tech with BS in Metallurgy and U of M with a MS in Materials Engineering.
Jim spent his life nurturing, not only his personal family, but many others as well. His church work and support of youth activities was exemplary. Many have been blessed by his devotion and generosity, their lives are better for having known him. Active at Feast of Victory Lutheran Church in Acme over 40 years and with the Masons and Shriners in Bellaire bringing Rainbow Girls and DeMolay Boys to the Bellaire Lodge.
Jim had a passion to raise his family “up north”. After working in metallurgical engineering many years, he built IONEX in Bellaire with over 30 employees at its peak that serviced the heat treat industry. The past few years he’s offered his Professional Engineering services to local small builders through Barnard Engineering.
He had a love of travel, boating, fishing & the outdoors. He took his family on many extended cross country road trips to see relatives and National Parks. Most recently, he loved sitting quietly on his property with his labradoodle puppy, Jazz, watching the wildlife early each morning. He was a visionary, an inventor, a designer and builder of absolutely everything; a true “Do It Yourselfer”. Despite many trials, Jim loved life and focused his energy on things that benefitted the community and people he held dear.
In March of 1969, Jim married the blonde love of his life, Jill Shirley in Albuquerque, NM and she survives. Also surviving are Jennifer Barnard (David Stanko) and their daughter Abby, Dayton, OH; June Barnard, San Francisco and T. Josiah Barnard (Sylvia Roberts) and their son Brock, Fort Worth, TX. Sister, Martha (Glen) Fishel, Burlington, WA., sister-in-law, Susan Barnard and niece Karlee (Brett Brinkley) and family, Charlevoix. Preceding Jim were his parents, son, Lewis James Barnard III, brother, Michael L Barnard, nephew M. Kelsey Barnard and special cousin C. Lee Thomas.
A Funeral Service will take place Saturday, Jan. 8 at 12:00 noon at the Feast of Victory Lutheran Church, 4400 Mt. Hope Rd., Acme, MI 49610, with Visitation taking place from 11:00 a.m. until the time of service. Visitation will also take place Friday, Jan. 7, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., with a Masonic Service taking place at 6:00 p.m. at the Bellaire Chapel of Mortensen Funeral Homes. The family requests that masks be worn at all services.
Arrangements are in the care of the Bellaire Chapel of Mortensen Funeral Homes. Sign his online guestbook www.mortensenfuneralhomes.com“
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From French furnace builder BMI we have this press release; “At the end of 2021, BMI signed a pre-acceptance protocol for two new vacuum gas quenching furnaces for a Korean customer who makes cutting tools. These two furnaces will be installed in the customer’s existing heat treatment workshop, which already includes a BMI tempering and low pressure nitriding furnace. Both furnaces will loaded on board a ship at the beginning of 2022. With this latest order, our reference list in South Korea reaches twelve vacuum furnaces.”
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In 2021, Solar Atmospheres of Western PA reported that they were retrofitting a vacuum furnace for use in a new Metal Injection Molding (MIM) and Additive Manufacturing (AM) binder removal technology application. The goal was to build a vacuum sintering furnace with a new innovative hot zone and pumping technology that would minimize and target the deposit of detrimental binders evaporating out of MIMand AM parts. The furnace has now been in production for over a month and has produced multiple high temperature sintering cycles and the results are impressive!
The hot zone, after repeated 2400°F sintering cycles, remains immaculately clean. The problematic binders coalesced exactly where they were targeted to consolidate – within a separate heated pumping port while keeping the primary pump and booster uncontaminated. Most importantly, the customer reported that their sintered parts processed in this new furnace never looked better. The MIM parts were extremely bright and met their critical density and dimensional requirements.
The anticipated maintenance savings on this dedicated furnace, versus processing sintering and AM work with binders in a traditional vacuum furnace, will be considerable. Processing this job in a conventional vacuum furnace required a scheduled monthly shutdown. Solar’s maintenance team had to extract the hot zone, replace the ceramics, clean, or replace the power feed through terminals, scrape the cold walls, clean the diffusion pumps, and scour all the pumping system pipes. The added labor and material costs coupled with the lost production time and degradation on the life of the hot zone cost the company more than $180,000 per year. The projected maintenance costs on this newly designed sintering furnace will be $10,000 per year.
Bob Hill President of Solar Atmospheres of Western PA reports, “Knowing the effects of what MIM and certain AM processing had done to our equipment in the past, Bill Jones and the engineers at Solar Manufacturing developed an innovative solution for us. Having this newly designed vacuum furnace will be an asset for our future in MIM and AM processing.”
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Since 1999 “The Monty” has been publishing annually a list of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America based upon annual sales, our 2021 list can be found at https://themonty.com/articles/50-largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-2021-2/ This year readers will see we became much more ambitious and expanded the list to the 50 largest. In our 40th spot we have American Steel Treating.
Founded in 1989 by three Surface Combustion employees including the current owner and CEO, Mr. Roy Waits, American Steel Treating is located in Perrysburg, Ohio. While the company offers most types of heat treating covering a variety of industries we tend to think of them for high volume automotive work processed through a number of pusher furnaces. The company operates out of a 300,000 square foot facility close to Toledo, Ohio.
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One of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America as rated by “The Monty Heat Treat News” is the Stack Metallurgical Group headquartered in Portland, Oregon, USA (find our where they rank at https://themonty.com/project/50-largest-north-american-commercialheat-treats-2021-2/ ). Stack maintains impeccable facilities which features some of the latest and greatest heat treat technologies available. To give you an example these two very large bottom loading vacuum furnaces were added to the Portland facility just a few short years ago.
We now have word that the company continues to invest and recently ordered a brand new 6 bar quenching, Turbotreater horizontal vacuum furnace from Ipsen which features an all metal hot zone. The furnace which is expected to arrive in June of this year represents a very substantial financial investment.
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An interesting finding popped up during our search to find the 10 largest single location captive heat treaters in North America and that finding is vacuum carburizing. We knew setting out that the largest would be heavily weighted in favor of automotive suppliers, what we didn`t realize was how significant the amount of vacuum carburizing (LPC) was-lets give you some brief background.
