Last week “Gord Montgomery” of “The Monty Heat Treat News” had a chance to spend some time with “Mr. Salvador Alvarado”, General Manager of furnace controls company SSi during the “ASM Heat Treat Mexico” exhibition in Monterrey, Mexico. Very few individuals have seen as much of the heat treat market in Mexico, so we took advantage of the time to ask Salvador a few questions about the Mexican heat treat market-these are his answers’

• Salvador you are General Manager of furnace controls company “SSi Mexico”-tell us how you ended up in the heat treatment industry in general and with “SSi” in particular. “By background I am a chemical engineer and also a metallurgical engineer. I started my career in “high end” pyrometry and from there moved on to “SSi Mexico in 2011. From 2011 to 2020 I was Operations Manager, before becoming General Manager in 2020, a position I still hold.”

• Tell us about “SSi Mexico”. “I am very proud of our tremendous growth over the years. We have grown to a total of 25 employees in Mexico, 22 are in our Querétaro office, three are in our Saltillo location and we will shortly have a new office in Nuevo Leon with at least one field service engineer. Our employees include Metallurgists, field service engineers and pyrometry experts.

• Tell us about the heat treat market in Mexico, what are the main industries and where are they located? “Without a doubt automotive is #1, Aerospace #2, with Agriculture and Heavy Equipment #3. Querétaro and Monterrey are the hub of automotive heat treating with Aerospace concentrate in western Mexico, although there is a growing aerospace sector around Querétaro which includes firms such as Safran. Chihuahua is also a hut of aerospace heat treating.”

• How significant is the aerospace industry in Mexico? “The aerospace segment was virtually nonexistent in Mexico not that many years ago, however it has been growing by leaps and bounds the past few years and is now the fastest growing heat treat segment in Mexico.”

• Is heat treating growing, remaining constant or shrinking in Mexico? ” I would estimate that commercial and captive heat treating in Mexico is growing at a pace of 10% per year.”

• Who are the main suppliers to the heat treatment industry in Mexico? “While a number of furnace builders from the USA and Europe subcontract some work to local firms in Mexico, the only substantial furnace builder in the country is “Mattsa”. I am proud to say that “SSi Mexico” is by far the largest supplier of furnace controls. Alloy components such as base trays, fixtures, radiant tubes, etc. come from a wide variety of sources including suppliers in China, India, France and the USA. Chinese alloy suppliers in particular are gaining market share although “Cronite” is probably the largest supplier.”

• Is it an issue finding good people in Mexico? “There are quite a few good people to be found in the Mexican heat treat industry, however because the market is growing employees have a great deal of flexibility in who they work for. If you treat your employees right they have little incentive to look elsewhere.”

• Is there much investment in new heat treat equipment? “Yes, is the short answer! Having said that, I should clarify that while there are quite a few new furnaces being installed, there is almost as much being investment in updating furnaces and controls-modernization of existing equipment is how I would describe it. It is very interesting to us that there is a lot of investment in new control systems in preparation for more “Artificial Intelligence”.

• One final question Salvador-how large is the commercial heat treat market in Mexico? ” While there are no official numbers, I would suggest that commercial heat treating occupies 5-10% of the total heat treat market. Some of the larger players include; Bodycote, CRIO, ETSA, ALD, Tecnotrat and Bati and other companies”.

Salvador I very much appreciate your time and your willingness to share your knowledge of the heat treat industry in Mexico. Sincerely Gord Montgomery

This past week “Gord Montgomery” of “The Monty Heat Treat News” had the opportunity to visit the absolute “Mecca” of vacuum heat treating-the city/state of “Singapore” which boasts an astonishing 450-500 aerospace vacuum furnaces in a tiny 900 square kilometer area.

Next week we will have a summary of the aerospace vacuum heat treating market in Singapore along with a few photos. We leave you now with this exclusive photo from “Barnes Aerospace” in Singapore.

(Editor’s Note; “The Monty” has had several stories over the past number of months about USA furnace builder AFC-Holcroft-Aichelin Americas changing the direction of their sales force “Furnace Builder Continues to Change North American Sales Direction”. This press release mentions another change).

“Expanding Western Coverage Through Strategic Partnership; Aichelin Americas is pleased to announce a new partnership with Heat Treat Elements (HTE), represented by Mike Hummel, to strengthen support across the Western United States. Through this collaboration, HTE will represent Aichelin Americas in:

Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho”

This partnership enhances local access to:

• Spare parts and aftermarket support

• Equipment projects and upgrades

• Technical expertise and field suppor

At one point in time the SKF ring and seal operation in Hanover, PA, USA boasted one of the largest and most advanced heat treatment facilities in North America. It featured pit furnaces, press quenching, pusher lines and batch IQ furnaces. The highlight was a dual, roller hearth, salt quench line, completely automated and represented at the time (17 years ago roughly) probably the most expensive and advanced heat treat system in North America.

Nothing is immune to time and SKF announced in April 2025 that they would be divesting themselves of this facility. While a number of the furnaces had been scrapped or sold previous to this decision, there did remain the roller hearth/salt quench furnaces which remain in operation to this day as can be seen in these pictures. Unfortunately, their days are numbered also and by the end of the year nothing will remain of this once very impressive heat treat facility.

“Bluewater Thermal” one of the “52 Largest North American Commercial Heat Treaters” as ranked by “The Monty” has just appointed “Mr. Jamie Kuriger” “Chief Revenue Officer. 

 

Jamie has had a long career in the North American heat treat industry with companies such as “Ipsen” (vacuum heat treat furnaces) and commercial heat treating giant “Bodycote”. 

 

At this point in time we have to confess that we are not entirely sure what the title “Chief Revenue Officer” means.

However we are confident that “Bluewater” will enlighten us, in the meantime we wish Jamie the best of luck in his new position.

Last week “The Monty Heat Treat News” was invited to visit “BATI Heat Treatment” in Ciénega de Flores, N.L., Mexico during the recent “ASM Heat Treat Mexico” event held in Monterrey, Mexico-needless to say “Gord Montgomery” of “The Monty” jumped at the chance.

“BATI Heat Treatment” is part of “BATI ISIL”, a Turkey-based commercial heat treater based in Izmir, Turkey with a 36 year history in commercial heat treating. In June of 2018 the company opened the facility in Mexico originally to service Turkey based manufacturing firms setting up in Mexico, the company has never looked back.

Over the subsequent 8 years the plant has grown to include 5 gas fired batch IQ lines utilizing endothermic atmosphere (all built by “BATI” Turkey by the way) along with associated equipment such as tempers and washers and an endothermic generator.

In 2021 a “KGO” (manufactured in Germany) nitriding system with a capacity of 2,000 Kg (approximately 4500 pounds) was added.

Ricardo Castro, the very competent general manager (who has been with the firm since day 1) told us that 2025 had been a record breaking year for the company, so much so that they are currently expanding the location by 60% with an eye to adding new processes such as vacuum, aluminum and induction, processes which are currently offered by their parent company in Turkey.

Ricardo went on to say that while they serve a number of different industries, automotive is a very important sector for them and with their CQI-9 certification they are well positioned to handle this work.

We would describe this facility as clean and up to date with a very committed and enthusiastic workforce-well worth a visit if you have an interest in seeing commercial heat treaters in Mexico.

If “The Monty Heat Treat News” ever puts together a list of the largest in-house heat treaters in the world auto and truck component supplier “Dana Corp.” will undoubtedly be on the list. Their captive heat treating facilities in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa rival any other company in the world-and “The Monty” speaks from experience having seen many of “Dana’s” locations around the world. 

This past week “Gord Montgomery” of “The Monty Heat Treat News” visited the “Dana”, Apodaca plant in Nuevo Leon, Mexico and what we saw was a new, clean brazing facility producing over 1 million automotive heat exchangers per year.

This location has been in existence since 2011 but only became a Dana location 2 years ago.  It has well over 100,000 square feet under roof with 300 employees.

The brazing department consists of 12 mesh belt brazing lines, all built by “BTU Furnace Company”, all operating at 700C, with a nitrogen atmosphere.

To find out more about heat treating at “Dana Corp.”, we would suggest these exclusive stories from “The Monty”;

 

“Largest Captive Heat Treaters North America-Dana Fairfield”

“Dana Corporation, Queretaro, Mexico”

“Dana Corporation, Queretaro, Mexico-Top 11 Heat Treater”