The SECO/WARWICK Group holds strong position with record order portfolio. The SECO/WARWICK Group, one of the 5 largest manufacturers of equipment for the heat treatment of metals and vacuum metallurgy in the world reports a record order portfolio of over PLN 400 million after three quarters of 2018.

The Group’s sales in the first three quarters of 2018 increased by 10% compared to the same period of 2017 reaching a record PLN 400.3 million. The operating profit for this period was PLN 20.2 million, while the net profit was PLN 13.4 million.

“A good performance and a rich portfolio of contracts, both completed and newly signed, result from a combination of excellent business relationships, a global reputation for proven technology, and consistently building a strong SECO/WARWICK brand,” said Paweł Wyrzykowski, SECO/WARWICK Group CEO.

A  record order backlog. The strong market position of the SECO/WARWICK Group is built not only by factories and companies on 3 continents, but above all, stable revenues and a record order portfolio for end-to-end solutions in 5 product categories.

One category of note is atmosphere heat treatment technology and equipment, the SECO/WARWICK product segment that enjoyed robust sales in 2018. The final results reflect great progress for this product segment that has prompted continuing investment in this technology and expansion into new markets. Projects worth mentioning include:

The latter product deserves a special distinction, because SECO/WARWICK is the market leader most frequently chosen by companies conducting fire resistance tests of their products.

Another product segment of the Group that recorded spectacular sales results is vacuum metallurgy. A significant increase in sales of vacuum induction melting systems (VIM) in 2018 has already become the success story of the segment. At Purdue University, USA, the Group installed and commissioned a VIM type furnace with a unique oil cooling system – a furnace for infiltrating samples with a zirconium alloy. VIM also was delivered among other vacuum metallurgy projects to an American company serving the aviation industry.

It was the aerospace industry that built a strong order portfolio, 70% of sales, for the Group in 2018, because equipment from the three segments of the Group are devoted to this sector. Particularly noteworthy are furnaces for vacuum heat treatment, which in 2018, SECO/WARWICK sent to customers at least once a week, 65% of the total volume were designed as customized projects. In addition to numerous realizations for the aviation market, the SECO/WARWICK vacuum solutions segment has proudly entered the demanding and difficult Japanese market for tool steel components.

The last but equally attractive product group is equipment for the heat treatment of aluminum and controlled atmosphere brazing (CAB). As shown by SECO/WARWICK in numerous installations around the world, technical experience and an innovative approach make the CAB solution the preferred joining technology for battery cooling plates within the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) and electric vehicles (EV) market. Interestingly, SECO/WARWICK is the only company in Europe supplying lines dedicated to brazing the aluminum electric car battery coolers.

4 X Stronger Position – Solutions Designed for Industry 4.0. SECO/WARWICK is an award-winning company that has been interested in unconventional and innovative solutions since its inception. The company has developed many intelligent tools to support production processes using artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the latest concept of Industry 4.0.

Observing the global market trends related to Industry 4.0, SECO/WARWICK launched a research and development project aimed at creating a comprehensive management system for predicting maintenance issues for both metal heat treatment and vacuum metallurgy systems, equipped with a unique failure detection system. The effect of this project is the SECO/PREDICTIVE system for monitoring furnaces for heat treatment.

SECO/PREDICTIVE, based on predictive analytics, together with the SECO/LENS® based on augmented reality technology, are the latest solutions of the Group supporting production and service processes.

Awareness of the need to implement advanced and intelligent solutions, often called “the brains” of an entire production line, is constantly growing. SECO/WARWICK, as a production company, perfectly understands these needs, offering innovations that increase the resilience of companies and their business performance. This was reflected in the results in 2018, where the Company recorded an increase in the number of electrical projects by 20% compared to the same period in 2017.

Financial data for the full year 2018 will be available in the consolidated periodic report in April this year, which will be posted on the company website www.secowarwick.com.

During our visit of heat treats in the South American country of Peru Dale and Gord Montgomery were able to take a couple of side trips around the country. While this has absolutely nothing to do with heat treating the Atacama desert is quite a sight to see.

From the “Meadville Times” in Meadville, PA, USA we have this news item about furnace builder SECO/WARWICK https://www.meadvilletribune.com/

“Worldwide changes in the industrial furnace industry has caused SECO/Warwick Corp. to halt manufacturing operations at its Meadville location, but it continues to have sales and service offices, according to company officials. The company is a division of SECO/Warwick S.A., based in Poland. It had been making industrial heat treat furnaces in Meadville under the SECO/Warwick Corp. name since 1984, but the history of the site as an industrial location goes back almost 100 years. Before SECO/Warwick, it had operated as Sunbeam Equipment Corp. from 1958 to 1984, and prior to that the site was the industrial furnace division of the former Westinghouse Electric Corp. which operated from the early 1920s to 1958.

At the beginning of 2019, SECO/Warwick shifted manufacturing from Meadville to “select local, regional and national subcontractor locations,” according to Doug Glenn, company spokesman. Glenn declined comment on what local and regional subcontractors were being used. Glenn said the Meadville offices have sales, service/support, administration, design, engineering and management personnel, but he did not give specifics. “(There are) no plans to close Meadville,” Glenn said. “This was simply an adjustment to our manufacturing strategy.”

After 40 years in the heat treating industry we have never seen anything like this. What you see in this video is the in house heat treating department of a major transmission manufacturer in the process of being flooded. Pit furnaces, pusher furnaces, rotary hearth furnaces all of being submerged as we watch. What a major disaster.

We were very fortunate earlier this week to be able to visit the largest commercial heat treater in Chile, a company by the name of Tratamientos Térmicos Panamericana Norte located in Santiago which was founded back in 1983. The company is family owned like so many other commercial shops around the world and has roughly 30 employees working 24 hours/day 5 days/week with weekends reserved for overflow work. I am sure it is because of the metal working market in Chile that this is what we would call a “job shop” as opposed to a production shop doing large volume work such as automotive. To take it one step further much of what the company does is related to the main industry in the county which is mining.

What we saw was a great deal of equipment dedicated to tempering, annealing and stress relieving along with the ability to offer salt nitriding, austempering and martempering, basically a strong emphasis of salt. Having said that we had some very in depth conversations about their future furnace requirements all of which are very high tech. Outside of the commercial heat treat industry it would appear that the largest captive in the country is a company by the name of Cormecánica wholly owned by Renault which has made at last count 3 million gearboxes and has an in house heat treating department which consists of several batch IQ furnaces. These photos give you a good idea about the company.

From left to right; Silvano Casagrande, Giuseppe Casagrande, Alberto Hidalgo, Maurizio Moschini, Pedro Vidal, Federico Parissenti, Hector Olivera, Gord Montgomery

In support of its continued growth, Modern Heat Treat, a commercial heat treating operation located in Richland Hills, Texas (USA), has added several additional UBQ (Universal Batch Quench) furnaces and companion equipment to its installed base. Several new equipment orders were placed with AFC-Holcroft months apart throughout the year in 2018, adding similar equipment to that already in operation in their facility.

Modern Heat Treat have benefitted from the modular, flexible UBQ design with the ability to add new equipment to their facility incrementally, creating full production cells that utilize existing controls. Individual furnaces can be added to the operation independently, and the same can be idled then restarted easily as needed for maintenance service, changes in process or production. “These large capacity UBQ furnaces provide Modern Heat Treat with a distinct advantage in the market, since the equipment is scalable to meet their need for flexibility,” says Tracy Dougherty, Vice President of Sales at AFC-Holcroft. “AFC-Holcroft is proud to be a part of the continued expansion and growth of Modern Heat Treat”

About Modern Heat Treat: Modern Heat Treat has been serving the metalworking industry since 2009, providing heat treating services such as alloy quench and temper flame hardening, carburizing, and more from small to large-sized businesses. The business has grown into a 25,000 sq ft facility on a 5 1/2 acre lot, with 57 employees and over 40 pieces of furnace equipment.

About AFC-Holcroft: Founded in 1916, AFC-Holcroft, is one of the US market leaders in the production of industrial furnace equipment for ferrous and non-ferrous metals. The company manufactures turn-key heat treating systems for applications including commercial heat treating, bearings, automotive, aerospace, mining, aluminum heat treatment, gear manufacturing, fastener manufacturing, and alternative energy industries. Member of the Aichelin Group since 2016 and headquartered in Wixom, Michigan, AFC-Holcroft operates its own subsidiaries in China and Switzerland and has a global presence through a network of partners located in Australia, Brasil, India, Mexico, Poland and Spain.

About AICHELIN Holding: As part of Berndorf AG, AICHELIN Group is a leading provider of heat treatment solutions, such as industrial furnaces, induction hardening plants, industrial gas burners systems as well as automation technology and after-sales services. The AICHELIN headquarters are located in Mödling near Vienna. The company’s roots date back to 1868. The long-established brand AICHELIN, as well as AFC-Holcroft, EMA Indutec, SAFED, BOSIO, and Noxmat, make up the group and together employ more than 1,100 people. AICHELIN Group ranges among the world’s top 3 heat treatment companies. AICHELIN’s subsidiaries in Europe are located in Austria, France, Germany, Slovenia, and Switzerland; the worldwide presence of the company includes subsidiaries and branch offices in China, India, Russia, and the US, as well as a sales network in 22 more countries. http://www.aichelin.com. For more information, contact [email protected].

Mr. Jan Söderström, Quintus Technologies. We are very pleased today to have an interview with Mr. Jan Söderström, CEO of Quintus Technologies-the world’s largest supplier of equipment for Hot Isostatic Processing.

Over the years I have run across Hot Isostatic Processing many times, but I have to confess I know little about the technology-could you please give us a brief summary about the process and why it is used?

“HIP is mainly used to densify metal castings, containerized powder shapes and ceramic parts. With typical pressures from 1,035 to 2,070 bar (15,000 to 30,000 psi) and temperatures up to 2,000°C (3,630°F). A combination of temperature and pressure for a specific soak time eliminates porosity allowing HIP to achieve 100% of the theoretical density and improve the ductility, fracture toughness and fatigue resistance of critical, high-performance materials. For castings this technology has been extensively used in the aerospace as well as the industrial gas turbine market, but it is also widely used for powder metallurgy and near net shape production in the Oil and Gas industry. The fastest growing new user of HIP technology is metal Additive Manufacturing (AM), 3D-printing.”

Would you consider this a heat treatment process or more of a related process?

“Originally HIP has been one part of several steps in a heat treatment process to create materials with superior properties. However, in the latest development of Quintus HIP systems, very fast cooling rates can be achieved, and multiple heat treatment steps can be included into the HIP cycle. Processes like stress relieving, solutionizing as well as aging and tempering can all be run in one and the same HIP cycle while the high pressure remains. Quintus call this High Pressure Heat Treatment (HPHT). This is possible due to the unique design of Quintus wire wound pressure vessels where very quick cooling rates can be achieved in the HIP under high pressure. So in answer to your question, our modern High Pressure Heat Treatment equipment is definitely a part of the heat treatment World. Traditional phase transition curves might need to be re-written to include pressure as a parameter as this can have a measurable effect on controllability of phase transformations.”

“The major benefits of combining heat treatment processes in the same cycle are of course lead time savings, cost savings as well as improved material properties. In comparison with oil quenching High Pressure Heat Treatment has also proved to be very beneficial to prevent distortions and crack propagation in the final product and tailored cycles can help prevent cracking with the use of pressure.”

What kind of heat treatment cycles can be run in your equipment?

“As mentioned above our modern HIP systems can be used for multiple parts of a heat treatment process. All of our systems have the possibility to run pressure and temperature independently which gives our customers a big flexibility in how to run their cycles. In addition to this the systems can be equipped with quench functionality where we can achieve cooling rates in which is similar to oil quenching. With these capabilities you can do stress relief, HIP, solutionizing, tempering as well as aging in our HIP systems. With that said it is up to our customers to verify what the most economical way of using the HIP system is for their respective products.”  

Who is your typical customer, a manufacturer or a commercial heat treater?

“Historically Quintus has sold HIP systems to a few providers of HIP services in the USA, and Europe as well as Asia but this is now changing. Quintus have seen dramatic increase in interest from commercial heat treaters in the last few years both in USA as well as in Europe. As you reported last year Gord, two new commercial heat treaters entered the HIP market in USA, Paulo and Stack, and Quintus also sold a system to a heat treatment company in Mexico which will be the first HIP service provider there.”

“In addition to this we also see an increase of interest from insourcing HIP technology where companies both OEMs and components manufacturers that have used HIP services for a period of time see the economical, the lead time and the Intellectual Property benefits of insourcing HIP technology besides the possibility to freely chose HIP parameters. It is especially the metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) industry that is coming into a production mode that now start to insource HIP and High Pressure Heat Treatment technology. Additive manufactured components can often benefit form specific HIP and heat treatment parameters that are different from the conventional parameters used for castings. This is due to the quite different microstructures seen in material produced by AM compared to cast material. HPHT enables tailoring of microstructures with the help of pressure and high cooling rates and many papers are now being presented on the benefits. This helps to fuel the demand from OEMs.”

“Finally, there is a category of metal AM companies that take the whole metal AM production chain into considerations that are now moving to insource HIP and HPHT. Having the possibility to control everything from the powder, printing, post processing etc. is a huge benefit for the final part quality. There has been a great deal of focus on powder and printing over the past few years, and now the industry is moving to look at post processing and lean manufacturing.”

How large is the market for HIPing, to phrase it another way how many HIP systems, both yours and competitors, would you estimate to be in operation around the world?

“Today there are around 100 presses operated by service providers (tollers) around the Globe.  The market is currently growing by more than 10% annually. The growth can be divided into two categories, the larger presses for traditional HIP use and the compact and midsized presses offering High Pressure Heat Treatment catering to the Additive Manufacturing industry and high performance investment casting.”

Geographically is HIPing more prevalent in some regions than others?

“The largest market is USA followed by Europe and Asia.”

Feel free to correct me but my impression is that Bodycote is far and away the largest in the world when it comes to HIPing. Having said that I can think of 3 US commercial heat treaters, Lake City, Stack Metallurgical and Paulo who have invested in this technology over the past year. Why this sudden and growing interest by commercial heat treaters?

“You are right in Bodycote being the largest player of HIPing in the USA and Europe but this is not the case for Asia. In Japan MTC is the biggest player and in China you have a multitude of companies offering HIP services. Regarding your question why commercial heat treaters start to invest in HIP now there are several answers to that:

The HIP market is growing dramatically and there is an increasing demand for HIP capacity. The requirements are increasing for the HIP service providers, and customers require much faster turn-around times from despatch to receipt of the part back from the toller. Larger systems dominate the HIP service market, and these require time to fill from various end OEMs, and now Quintus® sees an increased demand of smaller systems that can be run with faster turn around times and tailored heat treatment cycles.

Quintus can today also offer a rigorous preventative Maintenance and Application support program, called Quintus® Care. This program assures a trouble-free operation as well as optimized functionality and usability at a fixed cost. This program can be tailored to fit the specific needs of respective customers.

Finally, I would also like to mention that the Heat Treatment companies entering the HIP service market see this as an investment for the future where they will increase their market share not only for HIP services but also for Heat Treatment services. With the fast-growing market of Additive manufacturing these heat treatment companies will become One-stop-shops that can offer the whole heat treatment package at the same location which will simplify the logistics situation for many customers.”

My first impression when I see your systems is that they are highly engineered, heavy duty and complicated which generally translates into expensive. This a rather convoluted way of asking, what do these installations typically cost?

“As you can understand the price range ($0.5-$20 MUSD) is heavily dependent on the size of the equipment and it is especially the diameter of the system that increase the price level. We like to talk about what value a HIP investment brings to our customers and we always do a rigorous business case study together with our customers to be able to suggest the most economical solution for respective customer. Typical cost of operation is $0.1-$2USD/lbs (0.2-3.8 €/kg) depending on press size and how efficient you can load the components in the press.Typically, customers see a full return on their investment within 2-4 years depending on the size of the equipment”

Lets change gears slightly and look at your company Quintus Technologies. What can you share with us such as the history of the company, total sales, number of employees etc?

“Quintus Technologies has roots going back to the mid-1950s, when ASEA in Sweden was among the first to commercialize the isostatic pressure technology conceived at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. The world’s first high-pressure press came into operation in 1953 and was used to manufacture synthetic diamonds and other products. ASEA, later ABB, then continued to market sheet metal forming and isostatic presses throughout the world. Today Quintus has global annual sales of around 150 MUSD and we have 230 employees.”

Do you have much competition?

“Quintus is the largest manufacturer of Hot Isostatic Presses globally, but competition increases on a daily basis. We specifically see increased competition in China where several HIP providers are working on design improvement. With that said I like competition because we need competition to stay alert and continue to develop our technology leadership. Competition also means more players developing the market.”

What differentiates your machinery to that from other suppliers?

“There are a couple of significant differences between our systems and the main part of other HIP systems suppliers and they are:

Pressure vessel design – Quintus uses a high strength steel wire to pre-stress a thin walled forged cylinder. The walls of the cylinder always experience compressive stresses which prevents crack initiation and growth. This manufacturing method was developed in the mid 50’s for Quintus® diamond presses and has proven to be a safe and reliable concept ever since. The use of wire winding also makes it possible to use higher pressures for larger pressure vessel diameters. Quintus are today offering 30,000 PSI (2070 bar) for all standard equipment and can design machinery for high pressure ratings also for larger diameters.

Cooling capacity – As an effect of the thin walled wire wound design the pressure vessel can be cooled very effectively giving the opportunity to cool the load very fast. For the majority of Quintus pressure vessels cooling rates in excess of 400°F/min (200°C/min) up to 4500 C/min can be achieved which gives the possibility to combine HIP and Heat Treatment in the same cycle.

Temperature accuracy – Quintus have optimized its furnaces (Thermal Barriers) as well as the software controlling it and our customers typically experience temperature variations of ±3.6°F (±2°C) during the steady state hold time.”

What is your sales strategy? Do you sell through reps, direct sales people, regional offices? Along the same lines will be seeing you at any of the large Heat Treat shows in 2019 such as Thermprocess, ASM, HK19 or the Moscow heat treat show?

“Quintus has a global presence of its sales force and our front-end has expanded quickly during the last few years. As well as our Head Quarters in Västerås, Sweden, which covers large parts of Europe we also have sales offices in United Kingdom, Germany, USA (Columbus, OH), China and Japan. In addition to this we also have a large agent network that covers the rest of Americas, and Asia-Pacific.

We also see our Quintus Application Centers being an integrated part of our sales force. There, tests are performed to verify the customers’ processes and securing an attractive business case.

You will for sure see Quintus at several trade shows this year and even if we are not exhibiting we will be walking the floor at a multitude of events. For Heat Treatment we will exhibit at MS&T in Portland and Heat Treat 19 in Detroit as well as Thermprocess in Europe. In USA we will also exhibit at AMUG (Chicago), Rapid (Detroit) and Cast Expo (Atlanta). In addition to exhibitions, we are very active at conferences presenting a large number of papers each year in conjunction with industry and university projects.”

On a personal note Jan how did you come to be involved in this industry and in particular with Quintus?

“In 2012 was asked by the former owner, a US based PE company if I wanted to be involved in this opportunity- I got very excited. During my earlier time at ABB I had the opportunity to follow the development of the high pressure business close by and I was always intrigued by the highly specialized and powerful machinery.”

What does the future hold for Quintus and HIPing in general?

“The future for Quintus and HIPing is very exciting from many different aspects. HIPing is starting to get the traction we at Quintus always have worked for. In the aerospace industry HIPing has been used extensively for several decades having realized the benefits and HIP is considered from the start of the design process. Here it is seen as a perfect way to reduce weight and maximize safety since you know that you can rely on your material properties. With the whole metal Additive Manufacturing industry growing extensively this is something they have a direct use for as well. We can now see that more and more industries are applying HIPing more extensively including the automotive and orthopedic sectors. The greatest increase can be seen in the growing demand for High Pressure Heat Treatment capabilities, allowing further design improvements through repeatability and improvement of material properties.”

I very much appreciate your time and in particular your very open and forthright answers-I hope to meet in person in Sweden one of these days.  thank you. Gord

“We are pleased to announce that Jerram Dawes has recently joined Phoenix Temperature Measurement as Sales Manager. Jerram comes to PhoenixTM with knowledge of the Industrial Temperature Profiling and Heat Treatment markets with 20 years experience of working for a well-known temperature profiling equipment supplier. His previous market experience will be invaluable in helping him provide current and future PhoenixTM customers with a professional consultative service.

Jerram will be supporting the entire PhoenixTM range of ‘Thru-process’ temperature monitoring and TUS solutions used in Industrial Heat Treatment & Furnace Surveying, Paint Thermal Cure, Food Thermal Processing and Ceramic Firing Markets. Jerram will be working alongside Mike Handscombe to support our activities in the USA. Please join us in welcoming Jerram to the PhoenixTM team and what will be an exciting and challenging new role.” Jerram Dawes    e-mail: [email protected]

Last week we had a news item about an explosion at commercial heat treater Advanced Heat Treating in St. Marys, PA-we now have this update; “Several explosions were reported at the Advanced Heat Treating Inc. facility in St. Marys, PA on Monday evening that left a worker with minor injuries, several local news organizations reported. Firefighters were dispatched to the Trout Run Road plant at about 11 p.m. and remained on scene until early Tuesday morning. “We found out they had a draw furnace that an individual was operating and for some reason the draw furnace exploded and it caused a secondary explosion,” Crystal Fire Department Chief Bill Kraus told CBS News affiliate WTAJ. The fire official said that the worker was hit by a door after the blast occurred, according to the television news station’s report.  After receiving burns to their face, the worker was transported to an area hospital for treatment.” 

Commercial heat treating giant Bodycote just released their 2018 Preliminary Results which can be found at  https://www.bodycote.com/  As usual they make for very interesting reading if you want to see all the trends in the worldwide heat treatment industry. We came across this summary about the results which is probably as good as any-obviously the financial markets seem to be impressed; “Industrial services firm Bodycote (BOY) surprised the market on Friday with a double-digit increase in 2018 pre-tax earnings, sparking a 10% rally in the shares to 852p. Investors are also being treated to a 20p special dividend, on top of a 9% hike in the full year ordinary dividend to 19p. While the core heat-treatment business, which makes up three quarters of revenues, grew by a fairly sedate 5%, the rest of the businesses generated a 12% increase in revenues with some individual units recording over 30% growth. Bodycote is the world’s leading provider of heat-processing services for metal and alloy components. Heat-treating makes parts more durable and extends their life, reducing costs for the end customer. Typical customers are car-makers and plane-makers that need specially-toughened or coated high-performance parts but Bodycote also supplies the energy industry, rail and marine markets and even food and beverage companies. Automotive industry sales were up 7% last year, which is pretty impressive given the weak performance of new car markets in Europe and the US. Sales to the aviation industry were up 8% with a major pick-up to 12% growth in the second half as supply-chain bottlenecks eased and US production of fuel-efficient LEAP engines ramped up, increasing the demand for parts. Energy sector sales were up 13% thanks to demand from the Permian basin in west Texas but there was also a pick-up in shipments for subsea contracts and this segment is continuing to grow. There was a strong contribution from emerging markets with revenues up 21% driven by Mexico and China and Bodycote is upping its investments in these markets to tap into future growth.”

European Heat Treatment Shows. This year we at “The Monty” will be attending three heat treat exhibitions in Europe; Thermprocess in Germany in June, the Moscow Heat Treat Exhibition in September and the HK 2019 event in Cologne, Germany in October. Out of the three our favorite is the HK show in October which we have attended virtually every year for the past 10. To learn more about it we would suggest you click on their banner ad on the right hand side of this page. By the way the deadline for the announcement of lectures is March 15 and oral presentations in English are welcome. The photo below was taken in 2015 and front and centre in this picture is Florian Elwart of Bodycote.

Where are they now-Greg McFee. Greg is a long time heat treater having worked at companies such as Lindberg and Bodycote and at one time running his own heat treat Thermal-Tech in Ohio, USA. Greg took a small detour into the titanium industry but he has returned to his roots and recently set up his own heat treat consulting firm by the name of Thermal Consultants in the Akron, Ohio, USA area. Advanced Heat Treat Corp., in Waterloo, Iowa is pretty proud of this award; “WATERLOO, IOWA – Individuals and businesses will be honored on March 26 at the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance & Chamber Annual Celebration for their ongoing commitment to making the Cedar Valley a better place to work, do business, and live. The winner of the “Business of the Year (full-time equivalent employees 51 or greater)” goes to yes Advanced Heat Treat Corp.” Stack Metallurgical Group, USA; Generally we don’t mention when a company in the industry has a new, redesigned website because well usually it makes for a pretty boring news item to be blunt. We will make an exception today though because Stack with their 4 plants in the US Northwest is far and away the largest heat treater in the region and because usually the firm is a little shy about publicity. Their new website however is very open and shares more information than has been available in the past https://www.stackmet.com/ For instance the privately held company talks about their 4 locations, including their newest one dedicated to Hipping and also brags about their SECO vacuum carburizing furnace which with working dimensions of 70” x 70” x 84” and a 10,000 pound capacity is the largest we have ever run across.

Acquisition Rumor. Now this is a rumor which keeps dragging on, let us refresh your memory; “February 27, 2019. Now here is a very interesting rumor, one which we take seriously enough to mention today. Rumor has it that a Chinese company involved in the auto industry will be announcing possibly as soon as today that they have acquired a large Western based furnace manufacturer. If this is true it would mark the first time that a Western based furnace company has been acquired by an Asian company.” The latest has the two sides still apart on the final pricing and this deal dragging on.

OSR Adding Heat Treat Jobs. This press release has to do with a fastener company in Columbus, Indiana, USA which is expanding and looking to hire more people for their heat treating department. The company currently has 5 mesh belt lines but if they are only investing $2 million in new equipment (as mentioned below) they certainly are not adding another new furnace line; “COLUMBUS – OSR Inc., a manufacturer of automotive fasteners, has announced plans to increase its manufacturing production in Columbus, breaking ground on a new $7 million expansion that will support its future growth in Indiana. The company, which is a joint venture between Nagoya, Japan-based Owari Precise Products Co. Ltd and Columbus-based Rightway Fasteners Inc. (RFI), will construct and equip a new 82,395-square-foot manufacturing facility near its current facility in Woodside Northwest Industrial Park. With construction set to begin immediately, OSR expects to move into the larger space by the end of 2020, increasing its Indiana footprint by more than 40,000 square feet. The new facility, which will require nearly $5 million in property improvement and $2 million in new manufacturing, quality and logistics equipment, will allow OSR to produce a broader range of metal fasteners. Construction of the new facility is to begin immediately and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.”

To this press release from commercial heat treater Paulo we have to add-does this furnace look familiar? Back in late January we had a news item about a Chromalloy gas turbine repair facility in Middletown, NY, USA closing down, this was the picture we used. And yes Paulo is 100% correct, this furnace is a beauty and will be a real asset for the company.

 

“Paulo is excited to announce the addition of Vacuum Heat Treating to our Monterrey Division.  Since startup processing has been focused on stress relieving and ferritic nitrocarburizing.  Adding vacuum equipment is the first step to expanding the services offered by Paulo in Mexico. Paulo operates nearly 50 vacuum furnaces across the US facilities supporting a variety of industries and part types. The furnace, which will be ready for production in late April, was previously used for critical aerospace brazing.  Once installation and startup are complete the furnace will be capable of both Argon and Nitrogen quenching.  The working zone measures 48”x48”x48” with a 3500lb capacity and a maximum temperature of 2400F. The installation will include tempering and testing equipment to support both Annealing and Hardening processes for a variety of materials. “We are excited to expand our services in Mexico to support the manufacturing base located there. Access to local thermal processing is an issue many manufacturers are facing in the region, we look forward to the partnerships and continuing to help our customers succeed,” said William Rassieur, Vice President Sales. Founded in 1943, Paulo is one of the largest providers of thermal processing and metal finishing solutions in North America. Headquartered in St. Louis, Paulo operates six divisions servicing the Midwest, Great Lakes, and Southeast regions of the United States and northern Mexico.”