From “Hometown Life” we have this tragic story about a shooting in a commercial heat treat shop in Michigan;
“FARMINGTON HILLS — A workplace dispute boiled over into violence Tuesday morning, Farmington Hills police said, with one person hospitalized after a shooting in a factory parking lot.
Police were still at the scene of a shooting at Specialty Steel Treating Inc., 31610 Eight Mile Road, Tuesday afternoon where one man suffered critical injuries. Police did not say whether the person responsible for the shooting had been arrested.
Farmington Hills Police Chief Jeff King said a weapon has been seized and the involved parties have been identified.
“At this time, there is no danger to the public,” King said in a release. “I want to commend the speed and efficiency of our officers’ response, in containing and stabilizing this dangerous scene and ensuring the safety of our community.”
The preliminary investigation revealed that the incident resulted from an ongoing workplace dispute between two employees, police said. Officers were dispatched to Specialty Steel Treating at about 8:05 a.m. after receiving a 911 call from a man who said he had shot someone in the parking lot.
Officers interviewed several individuals involved in the incident, police said, including the subject who admitted to being involved in a shooting. A second individual was also identified after arriving at a local hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg. That person is receiving medical treatment for his wound and was listed in critical but stable condition.
Specialty Steel Treating performs “precision steel heat treatment” for aerospace, automotive, industrial bearing, heavy equipment and tool and die uses, the company’s website said. The company has two plants in Fraser, one in Farmington Hills and another in East Granby, Connecticut.”
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Located in Perry, Iowa, USA, Osmundson Mfg., is a fifth generation supplier of “ground engaging wear parts”, parts destined entirely for the agricultural industry. The firm recently made a major investment in their in-house heat treating department by buying 7 mesh belt heat treat lines from McLaughlin Furnace Group of Avilla, Indiana, USA.
The furnaces are each 48″ wide X 40′ long, direct fired, 1650F with a water quench.
About Osmundson Mfg; Osmundson Mfg., is a 5th generation supplier of “ground engaging wear products” formed over 120 years ago by the grandfather of the current President and CEO of the company Ms. Heather Bruce. With 75 employees the company is very proud of the fact that that everything they produce is 100% made in the USA.
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Left to Right; Ben Tackett, McLaughlin Furnace Group, Heather Bruce, President & CEO, Osmundson Mfg., Jevon Kuntz, Director of Operations, Darian Braun, Director Maintenance, Engineering & Quality, Ryan McLaughlin, McLaughlin Furnace Group.
Today is the second and final day of the “Furnaces North America” heat treat exhibition in Columbus, Ohio, USA and the universal opinion is that it has been a very productive event. The credit for this should go to the “Metal Heat Treating Institute”(MTI) organization which organized the event and Mr. Tom Morrison, President of MTI.
In this picture we see Tom along with Gord Montgomery of “The Monty Heat Treat News”.
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Furnaces North America (FNA) 2024, the leading trade show for the heat treating industry in North America, kicked off this week in Columbus, Ohio, with a full house at Monday night’s opening. Attendees and exhibitors gathered for two hours of high-powered networking, discussing key industry issues, operational challenges, and emerging business opportunities.
MTI President Ryan Fussell, of Southwest Metal Treating, welcomed the crowd, expressing excitement over the record number of exhibitors and pre-registered attendees. He highlighted how the event serves as a platform to showcase cutting-edge technologies and innovations driving success in the heat treating industry.
On Tuesday, a record-breaking 1,247 attendees participated in 20 technical sessions across five tracks, while 174 exhibitors displayed a wide array of equipment, accessories, and services, offering a comprehensive look at every aspect of the heat treating sector.
Day two of FNA 2024 promises more valuable technical sessions and business opportunities. For further details, visit www.FurnacesNorthAmerica.com.
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And what did we learn today at the Furnaces North America (FNA) show in Columbus, Ohio, USA? That Aerospace Testing & Pyrometry (ATP) is probably the largest Pyrometry Solutions Provider in North America.
According to Andrew Bassett, founder of the company they now have 10 North American locations, 27 employees and they now cover 42 US states in addition to Mexico and Canada.
Recent developments at the company include a new location in Seattle, WA (which we mentioned earlier this week), and the hiring of Cynthia Santana as Quality Director and Russell McFadden as Director of Engineered Solutions who will be writing “Aerospace Compilation Software” amongst his other responsibilities.
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Gord Montgomery, Andrew Basett, John Hollman, Tom Zimmerman, Frank Rapine, Jordan Montgomery
“Furnaces North America” (FNA) is now in full swing and “The Monty” is looking forward to keeping our readers up to date with the latest and greatest innovations in the industry.
First up we see that “McLaughlin Furnace Group” is stepping up to fill a partial void in the industry with the introduction of a combination “CyroTemper” unit. To date there has only been one supplier of this technology and McLaughlin taking direct aim at this field with a system with working dimensions of 36″ X 48″ X 36″, a temperature range of -300F to 1200F and a temperature uniformity of +- 10F.
In related news we hear that attendance at the show is almost breaking records and this show might have the second highest attendance of any FNA event. More on this later.
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Regular readers of “The Monty Heat Treat News” will know that each week we review the top 3 heat treatment news stories of the previous week based upon readers response and social media. For the week starting October 7th, 2024 these are the top three stories (we will add that since Gord Montgomery of “The Monty” was visiting Europe that week the items have a very European influence);
Heat Treating as it Should Be-SFS Group AG; Gord Montgomery of “The Monty Heat Treat News” had the absolute pleasure of visiting one of the finest examples of an “in house” heat treat department that we have ever seen-SFS in Heerbrugg, Switzerland. Lets start off with this summary of SFS;
“SFS is a worldwide leading supplier of application-critical precision components and assemblies, mechanical fastening systems, quality tools and procurement solutions. Positioned as a value engineering specialist, SFS creates added value for its customers with tailored solutions for mission-critical end applications. SFS Group AG operates in three segments; Engineered Components, Fastening Systems and Distribution & Logistics, which represent the company’s different business models.”
The heat treatment department stands out for three reasons, size, cleanliness and the “state of the art” equipment, let’s start out with size. The department consists of this equipment;
2 Batch IQ lines with a total of 5 hardening furnaces
5 Mesh Belt Furnace lines with oil quenching with a capacity up to 1,000 kg/h
3 Mesh Belt Lines for annealing operations
9 Aluminum Aging Furnace
5 Vacuum Furnaces
1 Pit Furnace
1 LPC (Low Pressure Carburizing) line
In terms of total production and processes we are looking at 80 tons of steel per day being cold formed and/or machined, of which approx. 40 tons is heat treated. The total size of the heat treat department is 10’400 square meters (112,000 sq ft). Heat treatment includes Quench & Temper, case hardening, carbonitriding, annealing (Cu, Al & magnetic properties for steel parts), aging and some special processes.
We mentioned “state of the art” equipment-there is not a single furnace in the heat treat department older than 15 years, with the bulk of the equipment being purchased within the last 5 years. Cleanliness? We leave it to these photos to tell the story.
Our host for the tour were two very experienced, knowledgeable and very friendly individuals, Harald Meier, Project Manager Heat Treatment Aerospace and Björn Penz, Project Manager Research and Development, T-RD Materials & Heat Treatment who are seen in these photos. We thank them for their time and hospitality.
This by the way is just one of a number of SFS facilities around the world who has an in house heat treat department-our understanding is that the facility in China has a heat treatment department similar in size to this location, in addition there is a much smaller version in Medina, Ohio, USA.
In short it would be difficult to find an in-house heat treater anywhere in the world with a more impressive department. We leave you with this further information about the company.
“SFS is a worldwide leading supplier of application-critical precision components and assemblies, mechanical fastening systems, quality tools and procurement solutions. Positioned as value engineering specialist, SFS creates added value for its customers with tailored solutions for mission-critical end applications. SFS Group AG operates in the three segments Engineered Components, Fastening Systems and Distribution & Logistics, which represent the company’s different business models.
The history of SFS began in 1928 with a hardware store in Altstätten (Switzerland). The cornerstone was laid for the development of industrial activities in 1960 when the company set up its own screw manufacturing plant in Heerbrugg (Switzerland).
Engineered Components segment In the Engineered Components (EC) segment, SFS partners with customers to develop and manufacture customer-specific precision-molded parts, assemblies and fastening solutions. EC comprises three divisions – Automotive, Electronics and Medical & Industrial Specials – and distributes its products and services under the brands SFS, GESIPA®, UNISTEEL and Tegra Medical.
Fastening Systems segment The Fastening Systems segment, which consists of the Construction division, develops, manufactures and markets application-specific mechanical fastening systems under the SFS, HECO® and TFC brands, amongst others.
Distribution & Logistics segment In the Distribution & Logistics segment, SFS is a leading distribution partner in Europe for direct and indirect materials in the areas of quality tools, fasteners and other C-parts as well as procurement solutions for customers in industrial and construction sectors. The segment is made up of the D&L Switzerland and D&L International divisions, and distributes its products under its well-established brands SFS, Hoffmann Group, GARANT and HOLEX, as well as other leading manufacturer brands.
SFS Group; The SFS Group is a global player with 140 manufacturing sites and distribution companies in 35 countries in North America, Europe and Asia. It generated third-party sales of CHF 3,090.8 million in the 2023 financial year with a workforce of approximately 13,200 (FTEs).”
USA Commercial Heat Treat Facility to Close“The Monty Heat Treat News” is seeing very unstable times around the world these days in the commercial heat treat industry with far more closures of plants than the normal attrition rate.
A recent example would be in California, USA where we understand the “Bodycote” facility in Westminster will be closing October 27th of this year. It is quite some time since “The Monty” visited this plant but we can say that back in 2016 this location made a large investment in aluminum solution treatment capacity.
“Bodycote is the world’s largest and most respected provider of heat treatment and thermal processing services that are a vital link in the manufacturing supply chain, and value-adding and proprietary specialist technologies which offer unique solutions for a variety of applications.”
Commercial heat treater “Haerterei Technik” in Ludenscheid, Germany operates a top-notch shop catering to a variety of industries, one of which just happens to be heat treating of components for Formula 1 race cars.
A division of Swiss Steel Group the firm has two locations, this one and a second one just down the road in Stuttgart which between them have a total of 70 employees. The facility we visited has a total of 13 vacuum furnaces, all with 10 bar quenching, two plasma nitriding systems, a number of units for case hardening along with systems for vacuum nitriding along with some water quenching units.
It is quite a sight to walk into this facility and see a total of 13 quite new vacuum furnaces all in a line, we would be overstating it to say “breathtaking” but we can truthfully say it is a sight which any vacuum heat treater will appreciate.
A leading designer and manufacturer of industrial ovens and furnaces, The Grieve Corporation is currently marking its 75th year in business. Begun in 1949 as a small job shop in Chicago, the company now occupies a 100,000 square foot facility in Round Lake, Illinois.
Grieve ovens are utilized for a variety of heat treating applications such as drying gold ore samples, stress relieving automotive parts, and curing the coating on military aircraft canopies. Among the numerous industries they serve are aerospace, mining, pharmaceuticals, construction, automotive, and energy.
Part of Grieve’s success is owing to the ability to customize heat treating equipment to the customer’s unique requirement. Whether a small batch oven, a large conveyor oven, or a high temperature furnace is needed, Grieve’s engineers can design the right equipment for the job. An extensive line of standard equipment is also available.
Doug Grieve and Frank Calabrese have always been committed to the tradition of quality products begun by their fathers, George Price Grieve (founder) and Pat Calabrese (former president). Tony Caringella, who joined the company in 2019 as chief operating officer, was recently named president. Tony has a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering and a Master of Business Administration. Before joining Grieve, he held top management positions at Illinois Tool Works and Cornelius.
Grieve continues to grow, entering new markets and making new products for industry worldwide. As they observe this present milestone, they look forward serving their customers for another 75 years.
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“The Monty” is looking forward to a number of additions to our Used Equipment listings later this week including a 10 Bar Quenching Vacuum Furnace, a carbottom and several batch IQ furnaces. These items will join our 100’s of used furnace listings which can be found at Used Equipment. Stay tuned.
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It’s a big week in the North American heat treatment industry with “Furnaces North America” being held in Columbus, Ohio, USA from October 14-16th. For 2024 this is far and away the largest event in the North American industry and of course “The Monty Heat Treat News” team will be in attendance and reporting live throughout the week. We look forward to seeing you there.
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