We have to hand it to SECO for selling a vacuum furnace into Japan-it is not an easy job. Japan in our opinion is the most close knit heat treating region in the world with Japanese heat treaters usually always buying from Japanese suppliers and only selling to Japanese customers. Having said that we will also say that heat treating in Japan is second to none. The attached photo shows a commercial heat treat shop we visited a few years back-a top notch operation.
“The Japanese manufacturing sector demands optimal performance quality in all of their capital purchases. SECO/WARWICK developed a precision vacuum furnace system to meet the Japanese customer’s expectations and standards for quality production. This specialized system reduces energy consumption through power optimization and cycle time reduction, customized to work within the tight physical space limitations. Even though this is the first vacuum heat treatment furnace that we’ve introduced into the Japanese market, SECO/WARWICK Group has been active in Japan for many years, delivering solutions from different product segments, for example, vacuum melting furnaces. Being present on this market, enabled SECO/WARWICK to better understand local needs. In terms of heat treatment processes, we already had the furnace that the client needed. However, because the traditional solution was too big and did not fit the customer’s tight physical space limitations, our engineers customized the furnace and created one that fits the limited manufacturing space perfectly. Transforming a horizontal furnace door into the special system of vertical opening and lifting was the secret sauce, keeping outstanding thermal process performance, especially with regard to quenching control” explained Maciej Korecki, VP, Vacuum Heat Treatment Furnaces at SECO/WARWICK.”
“Tracy Dougherty has been named Vice President of Sales at AFC Holcroft. The announcement was made by William Disler, President and CEO. According to Disler, “Tracy has a genuine ability of keeping the best interest of both AFC-Holcroft and our customers in mind as he deals with day to day activities within our group. This promotion will further reinforce Tracy’s key leadership role within our company”. Dougherty has been with AFC-Holcroft since 2008, and served in several sales-related roles, most recently as the company’s Sales Manager. As Vice President of Sales, Dougherty will now have a number of added responsibilities, including overseeing the company’s activities in Europe. 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, China, India, Mexico, Poland and Spain.”
The backbone of most heat treatment departments doing carburizing, neutral hardening or related processes is an endo generator to produce a carbon rich atmosphere. A typical older style unit can be seen in this photo-a Surface Combustion 5,000 CFH Endothermic generator and at one point in time this unit would have been in high demand but those days are long gone. The advent of air cooling, atmosphere control, multi retorts and automatic turn down of gas production on new units has rendered these older units pretty well obsolete and consequently almost worthless. New generators are actually selling fairly well these days, and even used units with most or all of these newer modifications have a ready market but it is pretty well the end of the line for the old timers such as this one.
From the UK we have this press release about Wallwork Heat Treatment. By the way if you recall this was the company which had the really cool video of the motorcycle rider, riding over the furnaces at Wallwork.
“At the annual Surface Engineering and Heat Treatments Awards, Richard Burslem, a former director at Wallwork Heat Treatment, received the Meritorious Service to Heat Treatment Industry Award. Presented on October 12th at the Radisson Blu in Manchester by Alan Hick, the secretary of the Contract Heat Treatment Association (CHTA), it recognises the massive contribution Richard has made to the industry since Wallwork Heat Treatment joined in 1990. The CHTA formed in 1973 to champion the use of contract heat treatment companies over internal departments and promote industry standards. While Richard stepped down from being a director at Wallwork in 2013 he has remained active on the CHTA management committee until February 2018”.
This is a story which is repeated on a very regular basis. A captive heat treater (in this case an aerospace company in the US Northeast) finds that they need to upgrade their furnace (s) making their older unit (s)surplus. A commercial heat treater with pockets not quite as deep as an aerospace company needs more capacity (in this case a commercial heat treater, again in the US Northeast) and a marriage is made. The furnace you see here is now on its way to a new home and everybody walks away happy.
In people news we see that Linda Hasenfratz, CEO of auto parts company Linamar was recently named Canada’s outstanding CEO of the year. Over the years Canada based Linamar has grown at an amazing pace and in the process become one of the larger captive heat treaters in the world with heat treating departments now on several continents. It’s amazing how often the Linamar name comes up when it comes to heat treating. James Cross who for many years worked with controls company SSI UK recently left the company which we mentioned a few weeks back. We can now say that he just got engaged to his long time girlfriend and will be taking a new position in Dubai of all places. We see that Thermal Processing Services http://www.vacuumheattreat.com/ in Greenville, SC, USA is adding some more equipment. The company was started a number of years back by Kevin Cook (who was formally with Accurate Brazing also in Greenville) and while it is still a relatively small commercial heat treater we are impressed by how far he has come. The addition is an Ipsen vacuum with working dimensions of 24” X 36” X 18” and it will join several other vacuums Kevin has including the VFS show below.
Another company which is adding capacity is Thermex Metal Treating in Edmonton, Canada. Recently they took delivery of their second vacuum nitrider from SECO/WARWICK a Zero Flow Gas Nitrider which came from Poland. It is either operational now or very close. Thermex has been quite busy these days as they also recently added a batch IQ furnace with working dimensions of 36” X 48” X 36”.
Well lets see how Nickel Pricing is doing so we can decide whether it is a good time to buy more baskets and base trays. It would appear that over the past year it has gone up but is now on a downward trend again so it is almost exactly where it was a year ago. We would suggest that probably at least for the near future there should not be any shocks when it comes to alloy purchases which is the best you can hope for when it comes to replacing alloy.
Heat Treating Indonesia. Damian Bratcher of SSI sent us this brief report about a recent seminar he did in Indonesia; “Super Systems Inc, KANTHAL and PT Tempsens conducted a technical seminar in Cikarang, Jakarta, Indonesia this week. The seminar covered CQI-9, atmosphere generation, process verification, furnace and heater maintenance, thermocouples, flow control and several other areas of interest to the participants. The heat treat market in Indonesia is primarily Japanese Automotive, motorcycle components and fasteners. Super Systems Inc. develops and manufactures products for the thermal processing industry. The products include probes, analyzers, controllers, software solutions, flow control and engineered systems. Kanthal(r) is a world-leading brand for products and services in the area of industrial heating technology and resistance materials. TEMPSENS has become one of the largest providers for thermal and cables solutions, having manufacturing facilities in Germany, India and Indonesia.”
We have two items from the UK to round things out for this out for the beginning of this week, the first about a captive operation TWI; “TWI is pleased to announce the opening of a new, state-of-the-art vacuum furnace facility to be used in supporting members with their development and pre-production requirements. The new furnace enhances TWI’s commitment to support its members in solving their industrial challenges. The new furnace facility will offer a range of thermal processes, including vacuum brazing and heat treatment, with capability for operation with argon, nitrogen and also a partial pressure of hydrogen. To enable us to support our members’ manufacturing and quality requirements, the furnace is run in accordance with the requirements of AMS 2750E standard and full quality documentation is available in support of process development.”
Our last item is also about the UK where it appears a company by the name of, Kepston Furnace Brazing & Bright Annealing in the West Midlands is just taking receipt of a new vacuum furnace from Vacuum Furnace Solutions Ltd., another UK company.
We are very pleased to be able to offer you an interview with Marc Angenendt, CEO of Ipsen Europe. As one of the largest furnace manufacturing companies in the world (if not the largest) Ipsen does not need an introduction. We enjoyed his comments and the only thing we will add is that Marc is a truly nice guy who knows his stuff.
Marc, over the years we have interviewed Geoffrey Somary and Pat McKenna – both of Ipsen North America but this, I believe, is the first time we have interviewed somebody from Ipsen Europe. Consequently we very much appreciate the chance to get a “European” perspective. We’ll start off with one of our favorite questions: what is your background and how did you end up in the heat-treating industry?
“Even at an early age, I was interested in technology of all kinds. As an apprentice, I became familiar with Ipsen technology at a young age, so I started working for the Ipsen customer service team once I had completed my course. After that, I studied industrial engineering at Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences because I was particularly interested in the link between technology on the one hand and the commercial side of an industrial enterprise on the other. I successfully completed my thesis for Ipsen in 1997 and started my career at the Ipsen in 1998. Because of my field of study, I worked in international sales of heat treatment systems.. After spending six months abroad at Ipsen Industries (Shanghai) Ltd., I was appointed to production manager at the headquarters in Kleve. Later, in the role of authorized signatory (“Prokurist”), I became responsible for design and some of the firm’s purchasing activities as well as production. I left the organization in 2013 to manage a German industrial corporation with sites in the USA and China before returning as CEO of Ipsen Europe in early 2016.”
In the heat-treating industry, Ipsen is a name which needs little introduction, but we would still appreciate an overview of the company in terms of size and locations and what each location specializes in.
“Ipsen Europe, with approx. 400 employees and a yearly revenue of more than €100 million, is a part of the Ipsen Group with manufacturing locations in the USA, Europe, India, China, and Japan. Within Europe, there are sales and service locations in France, Sweden, Germany, and Italy. Within Germany, we are currently starting work on our second service location close to Kassel. In Kleve, Germany, we specialize in the design and manufacturing of vacuum and atmosphere furnaces. For both technologies, we offer so-called platform products as well as customized furnaces for both the European market and certain international applications.”
What is your title at Ipsen and what does your average day look like? Mainly sales? Administration? Much traveling?
“My official title at Ipsen International GmbH is CEO (“Chief Executive Officer”) and I’m responsible for the European part of the Ipsen business. In regards to my average day, I would say that I spend the majority of my time on technical and sales matters. In addition, I work with development and implementation of measures in order to achieve all corporate goals, priority setting concerning the company’s activities, financial management and the related monitoring of the balances and the development of employee management matters. Since our customers are international, I also spend a large portion of my time traveling to our business partners.
At Ipsen, we are constantly adapting our organization to the demands of the market, so I’m in very close contact with the department heads of Ipsen Europe. It is essential to be a team player and to understand on a daily basis where the needs of your team are and what can be done to improve constantly.”
I personally have some experience of Ipsen USA, Rockford, having visited a few times over the years, but I have little experience of Ipsen Germany. Are the two organizations similar or does each focus on a different product mix?
“There are certain similarities like the product split into platform products and customized products, but in Germany we also see a larger part of our business in atmosphere technology. Here, not only do we offer atmosphere batch-type furnaces together with auxiliary equipment (e.g., endogas generators, washing technology, and low-temperature furnaces), but we also work in the field of continuous furnaces like pusher, rotary ring hearth, and roller hearth furnaces.
This large product portfolio enables Ipsen to work in all kinds of different industries.
Another area we excel in is the automation of complete heat treatment lines. Depending on the furnace type, we offer software solutions like Vacu-Prof, Carb-o-Prof, Conti-Control, and AutoMag. These software packages are all programmed by our own software engineers and are an important part of our product portfolio.”
If you were to break down your sales by products, what would they look like? 80% vacuum and 20% atmosphere? The opposite?
“The ratio of vacuum to atmosphere sales varies widely from quarter to quarter and from year to year. I have seen years where there was a clear majority for sales based on vacuum and other years where atmosphere technology was the major driver of our business. This also depends very much on the market for continuous atmosphere furnaces which can strongly influence the vacuum/atmosphere ratio.
For a company like Ipsen, it is important that we offer a product portfolio which allows us to be flexible to market needs, for example from customized to standard furnaces and vice versa as well as from atmosphere to vacuum and vice versa.
As far as I know, Ipsen is the only company which can offer this kind of product portfolio on an international level.”
This leads to another question: do you have a focus? For instance, did you get out of bed this morning and say: let’s increase our sales of atmosphere furnaces as opposed to vacuum?
“Once a year, we set ourselves certain goals. These goals are closely connected to our overall strategy and lead to certain activities.
We have very clear targets when it comes to the development of our products, our sales strategies in various parts of the world, and the overall growth development of the Ipsen Group. An important part of our growth initiative is the utilization of our international setup in order to offer our customers worldwide the same Ipsen standard.
Therefore it is important to understand the market and the general direction our business is moving in. In order to understand this, we are in close contact with our customers and support them in many areas. For example, in Germany we have our own heat treatment R&D department with a complete vacuum and atmosphere furnace line where we do trials for our customers. In many cases, we have developed the heat treatment process together with our customers there.”
What upcoming challenges come to mind when you think about the future? Let me elaborate a bit on that question. We all see competition on a daily basis and we all see cost challenges, but when you look at the bigger picture do you spend much time thinking about what heat-treating will look like in 20 years? Whether the technology will change drastically in our lifetimes?
“Yes, we at Ipsen spend a great deal of time thinking about the future and especially the future demands of our customers. This leads to certain development projects like the invention of our PdMetrics system, which allows the client to predict when which spare parts will be needed and to ensure the highest possible availability of the furnaces.
We also believe that our furnaces should be as energy-efficient as possible, which has led to a larger variety of energy-saving systems like the EcoTemper system or the EcoFire systems.
There will always be changes and challenges in the future, but I feel that we at Ipsen are well prepared for the future because we have already delivered the proof that we can quickly adapt to the challenges of the future.
When I look back, I see Ipsen as a clear driver of innovations based on a deep understanding of our technology and the demands of the future.
There will always be changes and new demands – that’s simply unavoidable – but the question is how to deal with them and how to find answers to these challenges.”
I have a good friend in the USA who has been in the industry for almost 50 years now and his attitude is that there is nothing new in the industry. Some changes, yes; some modifications, yes – but at the end of the day except for controls and some tinkering, heat-treating is still heat-treating. Perhaps a rather cynical view, but is it a view you would agree with?
“Yes, I have heard this before and it is correct to state that at the end of the day customers want their steel to be heat-treated. The challenge here is not to discuss this demand: the challenge is to heat-treat steel in the best possible way with as much accuracy as possible and with a minimum of energy.
I do believe that we have already taken major steps to come closer to this goal. If you compare how heat treatment was done 50 years ago with an energy-optimized Ipsen furnace with all the accuracy you can imagine and all the controls which make the process 100% transparent, you can see which major changes have happened and how much work has been done in order to reach the level of technical maturity we have today.
At Ipsen, we have taken major steps toward meeting these challenging new demands from our customers and we are still working on the furnaces of the future.”
If somebody said to you tomorrow: “Marc, you can sell vacuum furnaces or you can sell atmosphere furnaces, but you can’t sell both,” what would your answer be? Perhaps the essence of the question is: which technology is the most versatile?
“I’m convinced that in the future we will still see both technologies, because both technologies have their place in the industry.
I would answer this question by saying that the wrong CEO was asked and that this question would be better put to someone who can only offer vacuum or atmosphere furnaces.”
Is there a technology or product which really excites you at the moment? Perhaps single-piece part flow furnaces? Nitriding? New control systems?
“I strongly believe that nitriding will have a bright future since you can achieve excellent metallurgical results at relatively low temperatures while partly avoiding distortion at the same time.
It is always exciting for me when we develop a new process or a new product and I see how our customers are using it. That was the case, for example, when we developed our energy-saving systems. It was simply impressive to see that we can now use the surplus process gas to heat a furnace instead of simply burning it, which is what was done for the last 50 years.
Technical innovations like this are an important driving force for Ipsen and our success and are the icing on the cake in my job.”
None of us has a crystal ball but what do you see in the future for Marc Angenendt? The same responsibilities that you now have or do you have a yearning for more time in sales or more time in engineering?
“Looking back from being an apprentice at Ipsen in the 90s to now being the CEO with everything I did in between, I can state that I’m truly happy with my current position. It offers me a large variety of activities in both sales and engineering but also in commercial issues. On top of this, I have always had many good coworkers around me and today I have an excellent management team who support me every day.
It is now our responsibility to prepare Ipsen for the future and I’m confident that we can accomplish this mission.”
Three weeks ago we visited a commercial heat treater in German by the name of HÄNDLE Härterei GmbH which proved to be a very interesting visit because of the size of the company and the investments the company has been making recently. These are the details and you will note that at the time we promised more details in the future, well the future is today.
“October 2018. HÄNDLE Härterei GmbH, Tubingen, Germany; So you show up at commercial heat treater HÄNDLE in Tubingen (Southern Germany) and you see a nice, neat clean, modest heat treat. Then you go to the second building across the street, then the third and then the fourth and by the end of the tour you stand there and say “this place is a lot bigger than I thought”-at least that’s what we said. Founded roughly 50 years ago this is a large, full service heat treat which back in April was sold to Halex Group based in Aldenhoven (Halex as it turns out is a group of 8 commercial heat treaters which makes them one of the larger HT groups in Europe, more on them later).
Since the acquisition in 2016 the HALEX Group has continued to invest into Händle, starting from production capacities, employees, as well as the building & its infrasturture. The overall investment is since the acquisition is in access of € 3 million.. For instance have a look at the Ipsen Sealed Quench line in the one photo. There is a total of 6 furnaces in the line, the one you see in the front is only 1 year old and there is another furnace on the way. The induction department is quite new and very impressive, nitriding capacity is fairly new and there are plans to expand that department also-it would appear that every department in the company is growing. It always brings joy to our heart to see heat treaters investing and growing.”
What we didn’t know prior to this visit was that HÄNDLE Härterei was bought by a small conglomerate by the name of Halex Group in April of 2016 and that the group now owns a total of 8 commercial heat treats making them one of the larger commercial heat treaters in Europe and substantial even on the global scene. The various locations are in Germany (4), Netherlands (1), Italy (2) and Romania (1) https://www.halex-group.de/V1/index.php/en/
We have always considered, Bodycote, Hauck, SHU and Hanomag to be the “big boys” on the block when it comes to commercial heat treating in Europe but perhaps Halex should be added to this illustrious group.
Right out of the blue just a few weeks back a very experienced heat treater approached us about an issue he had just run across, namely contaminated refractory brick. At the time our initial thought was that this was some sort of hoax dreamed up by a scrap dealer as a negotiating tactic. Well from comments we have received we are starting to think there is something to this story. Read through these comments, check out the link and see what conclusion you come to.
“I have recently learned that large steel mills have had major issues with radiation in refractory brick. I am aware of one that had to shut down for 45 days in order for radiation contamination in brick to be removed. In this case, some of the workers were actually being affected. So my initial research that indicated the radiation is harmless is not correct — it can be harmless but it can also be problematic. The scrap dealers and landfills do indeed have reason to be concerned. The secret that the refractory industry has managed to keep for decades is now becoming known. You can buy a cheap, semi-accurate Geiger Counter on Amazon for $39 and a really good one for under $400.”
http://www.iem-inc.com/information/radiation-sources/useful-radioactivity/refractory-brick
“The Monty” is now e-mailing a “Weekly Update” to approximately 8,000 captive and commercial heat treaters around the globe. This weekly update includes two news items about the heat treatment industry, featured used equipment and one banner ad which can be yours for $99.00 for one “Weekly Update”. This is an unprecedented offer and there is no catch except that pricing will increase January 1, 2019 and this offer is limited to only one ad per week. Send us your ad, we send you an invoice payable by credit card and over 8,000 heat treaters will see your message. It can’t get any simpler. [email protected]
