Last week at the very tail end of the “Heat Treat Mexico” event in Queretaro, Induction heating experts Inductotherm held an open house at their location in Queretaro. Robert J. Madeira, Presidente, Global Manager of Heat Treating Technologies, Inductoheat Inc., provided us with these photos and comments;
“During our open house we had more than 30 clients greeted by 34 Inductotherm Heating & Welding (IHWM) Employees. In September of this year we will be starting our 5th year of operation. We provide tooling for most any brand of Induction equipment and support Thermatool and Inductoheat brands in Mexico. At the ASM Heat Treat Mexico event we introduced a new brand of equipment produced by Consarc and PVT of the Inductotherm Group. It will provide equipment to the budding Aerospace industry in Mexico, much of which located right here in Queretaro.”
The world’s largest commercial heat treater, Bodycote released their financial results for the year ending December 31 2019 earlier today and as always they make for fascinating reading. Fascinating because as the world’s only truly global heat treater their results give us an insight into the heat treating industry around the world. For instance the company mentions a slowdown in the European auto industry, investments in growing markets such as Eastern Europe (Slovakia to be exact) and Scandinavia, investments in “Hipping” in 2020 and the progress of new locations in the US. In short if you want to know which geographic areas are growing or shrinking in terms of heat treating, which industries are seeing growth and which aren’t or which thermal processing technologies are growing there can be no better source in the world than Bodycote. The full financial summary is available at https://www.bodycote.com/
Operational highlights:
-Resilient margin3 of 18.7% despite some tough market conditions – significant actions taken to reduce costs
-Civil Aerospace revenues up 17%
-Specialist Technologies revenues up 3%, continuing to outperform Classical Heat Treatment (-4%)
-Emerging Markets’ revenues up 5%
-Strong free cash flow conversion of 91%7
-£61m expansionary investment in strategic growth areas in 2019
-£154m acquisition of Ellison Surface Technologies strengthens aerospace business and Specialist Technologies; expected to complete Q1.
-Full year ordinary dividend 20.0p, up 5.3%
Any list of the largest captive heat treaters in North America would have to include auto and truck component supplier American Axle & Manufacturing (https://themonty.com/project/
This all takes us to the AAM Manufacturing Complex in Guanajuato, Mexico which we visited last week. The complex includes several different facilities and several different heat treat departments. We are very constrained in what we can say and photos were an absolute no-go but we can at least give a broad summary. What we saw were multiple large pusher furnaces, numerous batch IQ furnaces and generators with a couple of large mesh belts thrown in. The equipment ranges in age from older right on up to almost brand new and all of it is in immaculate shape with state of the art controls. Although we were not allowed to take photos of the equipment we do have two photos we can share with you. In the second picture you see two of the individuals who help to keep the heat treating department running as smoothly as it does; Ms. Claudia Olivo and Ms. Maria Soto alongside Mr. Salvador Alvarado (SSi Mexico).
Solar Atmospheres is one of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America. This rather interesting article appeared in a local newspaper “The Herald”. We say interesting because the article talks about how the company is handling the North American labor shortage and also how the company has grown over the years and how it continues to grow.
“HERMITAGE – Solar Atmospheres offers new employees a perk – on-the-job training – that has become unusual among industrial companies. Bob Hill, president of Solar Atmospheres, said the company is a throwback to a time in the area when steel mills boomed and teenagers could graduate from high school on a Friday and start a factory job the following Monday. Starting wages for workers are between $17 to $18 an hour plus benefits such as medical insurance and a 401(k) retirement plan. Potential employees should be, at minimum, high school graduates, Hill said. Solar Atmospheres needs workers who have basic math and reading skills, Hill said. The company will take care of most of the rest. “And they need to be dedicated, reliable, honest and hard-working,” he added.”We provide all of the training and teaching,” Hill said. “We have a full-time trainer for our new personnel.” The company offers true on-the-job training, he said, with more experienced employees serving as teachers and mentors. Further, it has created mockups of its equipment to teach workers in a low-stakes atmosphere. “They have dummy controls so you can push a button and nothing will be affected,” Hill said. That’s important, Hill said, because the company uses expensive vacuum heat-treating furnaces to prepare expensive materials for demanding consumers.
Solar Atmospheres provides metal heat-treating services for brazing-style adhesion, hardening and purification for a wide range of industries including the aerospace, automotive and defense industries. Its projects include proprietary work for the U.S. military, Hill said. The proof of Solar Atmospheres’ success is in its growth. It’s preparing for the fourth expansion at its Hermitage shop – the company also has facilities in Souderton, Montgomery County; Greenville, S.C.; and Fontana, Calif.Construction of the 16,000-square-foot expansion will begin in April and is expected to be complete this fall. The addition will give the company over 105,000 square feet under roof and add 10 employees to its existing 70, said Bob Hill, Solar’s president. “Initially, it will house our shipping and receiving and it will keep trucks there,” Hill said. “And I’m sure eventually we’ll be adding furnaces there.” Solar’s Hermitage plant has come a long way from its origins. The operation started out in 2001 with four employees housed inside 16,000 square feet. Located on 14 acres along Broadway Road in Hermitage, Solar Atmospheres has enjoyed steady growth. “We are very busy and we desperately need the space the addition will give us,”
Each of the previous expansions has added workers. What’s more, the expansions have brought in more equipment requiring specialized training. There’s good reason for Solar Atmospheres’ investments of time and money on its work force. The uses sophisticated furnaces to treat materials, mostly metals. Among the metals the plant treats is titanium, which doesn’t come cheap. A single batch of titanium heated in a furnace can easily top $1 million. The 48-inch vacuum furnace the company installed in 2016, which it touts as one of the world’s largest, cost $8 million. These treated metals are used in such areas as aerospace parts, medical equipment and military applications where rust could spell doom. The process of vacuum heating materials can remove impurities such as oils, dirt, or other meddlesome substances. “Some customers worry about the surface of their products,” Hill said. “They don’t want any discoloration in the finished product.”
Certain metal alloys can be strengthened by vacuum heating – which creates another business opportunity for Solar. The company recently added a lab at the Hermitage facility where metals can be tested for strength. Previously, customers had to conduct those tests themselves or outsource them. A big misconception is that strength and hardness are the same thing, Hill said. Strength is the ability for a material to handle loads. The more weight a material can handle, the higher its strength. Hardness is a material’s ability to resist being penetrated, dented or scratched. The Hermitage plant tests for both with laboratory equipment uses a diamond that is struck into a material – mostly metal. “If the diamond barely goes into a metal then it’s hard, if it goes in deep then it’s soft,” Hill said. Solar Atmosphere also tests for hardness by taking a sample of the metal is taken and pulling on it like taffy. Hardness is determined by the force it takes to pull the metal apart. Hill said the company is taking a hard look at adding other services in Hermitage. “We’re always looking for better ways to do things,” he said.”
Personally we are getting rather tired of hearing about the corona virus and we have serious doubts that it will turn out to be as serious as some predictions have suggested. Having said that though it is having an impact on the industry. For instance IHEA (The Industrial Heating Equipment Association) has postponed their planned Caribbean cruise which was supposed to have been March 12-16th. We have this announcement from Anne Goyer, Vice President of IHEA.
“The IHEA Board of Directors reached a decision this week to postpone our upcoming 4-day Annual Meeting that was to be held on a cruise ship out of Tampa, FL, due to circumstances surrounding COVID-19. I believe the biggest concern with holding the meeting was the potential for quarantine at sea, causing members to be away from work and home for an extended period of time, said IHEA Executive Vice President, Anne Goyer. “While we applaud the cruise industry for the steps they are taking to keep passengers safe and healthy, our Board felt it was in everyone’s interest to postpone the event. Royal Caribbean is allowing us to re-schedule the event so we will be alerting members of the new dates as soon as they are confirmed. In an effort to still deliver the important, timely content that was scheduled to be presented at the meeting, we are arranging for several speakers to deliver their presentations via webinars. These details will also be provided to members shortly.”
Last week we had two photos of a vacuum carburizing installation in a manufacturing facility in the US which begged the question; “Why Do Captives Choose Vacuum Technology?”
https://themonty.com/why-do-
It hit a chord based upon our feedback and one fellow at furnace manufacturer SECO/WARWICK posted these two photos of a captive operation in reaction to our comments. The before photo shows a very tired pit furnace installation with the after photo showing a brand new vacuum set up. While it is true that a vacuum installation does fit in much better in the midst of a manufacturing facility because of a lack of smoke and heat we should be fair here. Comparing the cleanliness of a new electrically heated vacuum furnace with gas quenching against an older gas fired carburizing furnace with oil quenching is not an especially fair comparison (and yes we know that the one furnace shown here does have oil quenching). Suffice to say that manufacturing has changed over the years and thankfully newer, cleaner furnaces are more the norm these days.
“WARREN, OR: DELTA H recently completed the installation of a large walk-in oven at Composites Universal Group (CUG), an internationally recognized composite manufacturing company specializing in the production of high-quality composite components for Aerospace, Drones, Industrial and Space applications as well as custom prototyping. The following are some of the projects at CUG: Vahana electric VTOL aircraft, Sierra Nevada Corp Dream Chaser Pressure Vessel, and Leidos Corp. Composite Beams. DELTA H CTO Richard Conway stated, “It is truly rewarding and exciting to be among the technology providers supporting these projects and to have a role in the cutting edge of transportation.”
The DELTA H Oven features an interior volume of 12’ wide, 10’ tall, and 32’ deep, with high volume New York Blower plug fan, PowerFlame gas burner, and rapid cooling / chamber pressure control. For vacuum composite processing the system features multiple part temperature as well as vacuum transducers for precision monitoring of process heating. Eurotherm Nanodac is featured with cascade control that selects the coolest part then automatically adjust air temperature to precisely maintain the desired ramp rate, soak time, and cooling rate.
“The DELTA H Composite Oven has performed flawlessly ever since initial startup. It’s become a critical part of our Equipment listing here within CUG. We use it 2-3 times each day, 5-6 days per week. It is critical to our operations and the curing of our high temperature parts fabrication. The support from the DELTA H Team was superior from day 1 and we are glad that we selected the DELTA H Oven to be a part of the CUG family!” states Steve Ruege, President and Director of Sales at Composite Universal Group.”
Founded in 1964 TREMEC is a manufacturer of transmissions and transmission components for a number of industries including automotive, heavy truck, agriculture and defense. Based in Mexico the firm has locations in the US, Mexico and Belgium with 3 of the facilities boasting in house heat treating capacity. Last week we at “The Monty” had the chance to visit the Pedro Escobedo location near Queretaro, Mexico, a facility which produces transmissions for heavy trucks. The heat treat department consists of a few batch IQ furnaces alongside two single row pusher lines. While none of the equipment is brand new it is very clean, certainly cleaner than most heat treats and it does have state of the art controls along with one of the coolest control rooms we have seen. By the way this facility is dwarfed by their larger sister company, TREMEC in Queretaro which produces automotive transmissions. Their heat treat department is similar in the types of furnaces but much larger in size. Enough of our talking-lets get to the good part which is the pictures.
The entire world is well aware of the fact that the Corona virus brought export shipments from China to a crashing halt. This included items of great importance to heat treaters, items such as alloy furnace components and fixturing and molybdenum (moly) products a material used largely in vacuum heat treating applications. “The Monty” has for years imported moly from China and as with every importer we saw our shipments come to a halt recently, partly because of the Chinese New Year and partly because of the corona virus. We are extremely pleased to be able to say that regular shipments from China have resumed and it would appear that business is getting back to normal. This photo shows Jordan Montgomery with a moly shipment we received last week albeit 3 weeks late. We are hoping that one of these days we can look back and regard this as a minor inconvenience.
http://gvtinc.com/pages/MolybdenumProducts.htm
It is with regret that we mention the passing of Wayne Howard, founder and President of All Source Heat Treating in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Wayne spent his entire working life in the captive and commercial heat treating industry before founding All Source Heat Treating in St. Catharines a number of years back.
“Howard, Wayne – At the St. Catharines General Hospital, on Saturday, March 7, 2020, at the age of 63 years. Beloved husband of Carol (Johnson) and dear father of Melissa (Brett) Leech and their children, Logan, Braden, Graycen, Shelby and Savanah; Michelle (Steve) Heacock and their children Madison and Haley. Brother of Stewart (Claudette) Howard. Predeceased by his parents Kenneth & Emelia Howard. Wayne was the owner of All-Source Heat Treating Inc. Cremation. A memorial service will be held at the Vineland Chapel of Tallman Funeral Homes, 3277 King St., on Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 1:00p.m. Visitation will begin at 12noon. If desired, memorial donations may be made to the Arthritis Society.”
