“Adamus, a European manufacturer of punch tools and spare parts for tablet presses, capsule presses and blister machines used in the pharmaceutical industry, has ordered a Vector vacuum furnace to efficiently heat treat a wide range of punches used in tablet production. The Vector vacuum furnace on order solves the partner’s challenge to grow production in order to meet the increased demand for the number of punch hardening processes for tablet production.

“Adamus contacted us for the fourth time. This time, the Partner wanted to replace an older, inefficient vacuum furnace with oil hardening, with a modern, more ecological and more economical vacuum furnace with gas hardening. Vector will perfectly meet these needs. It is compact, so it will not take up much space, it is efficient and ensures process purity, which is extremely important in the pharmaceutical industry,”- says Maciej Korecki, Vice President of the Vacuum Furnaces Segment at SECO/WARWICK.

The Vector for Adamus is equipped with numerous options, including convection, directional cooling and isothermal quenching, which increase the solution’s efficiency and effectiveness. Thanks to the inverter control, we can switch on the optimal cooling power in the appropriate process segment. Another big advantage is low heat loss and good temperature uniformity in the graphite heating chamber, which is resistant to rapid wear and is easy to use and service.

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most demanding in terms of standards, procedures and technical parameters, which must be met by equipment involved in the production process. Complex components used in the pharmaceutical production process must be characterized by excellent workmanship and precision results. These finished components are integral to the manufacturing process, ultimately determining not only the final medical product, but also human health and life. Therefore, manufacturers of stamping tools, tablet presses, capsule machines and other machines used in the pharmaceutical industry, when choosing solutions for their hardening plants, are guided primarily by quality, reliability and experience.

“The essence of our work is to listen to the Partner’s needs and propose solutions which will fully meet them. SECO/WARWICK vacuum solutions are designed in such a way that we can equip them with various options without the need to modify the main structure. Thanks to this, the flagship Vector vacuum furnace can work for the aviation, medical, tool and automotive industries,” – said Paweł Okińczyc, Sales Engineer at SECO/WARWICK.”

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“Ipsen USA announces the promotion of Chris Martin to Regional Service Manager for the Southeast United States. In his new role, Martin will be responsible for leading a team of seven that includes six Field Service Engineers and one Service Administrator. Since joining Ipsen in 2018, Martin has served as a Field Service Engineer in the Northeast. He came to Ipsen with decades of experience, including a multi-year furnace installation project in Germany. Martin plans to lead his region by sharing the lessons he’s learned throughout his career. “The most important lesson I’ve learned is the value of treating customers with respect and honesty. Good customers will appreciate that and treat you the same way,” said Martin.

“Throughout his tenure with Ipsen, Chris has been recognized for his ‘can do’ attitude and the positive impact he delivers to our customers,” noted Dave Choate, Ipsen USA’s Director of Field Service. “As the new Regional Service Manager, Chris will continue to foster the growth of our Field Service team through his mentorship approach.”

Martin joins an experienced team of five other Regional Service Managers, covering Southern California, the Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, and Western United States. Together, they have over 42 years of experience working with Ipsen’s customers. The Southeast region includes Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Chris and his wife will be relocating from Ayer, Massachusetts to the Greenville/Spartanburg area of South Carolina by the end of September. They have three adult daughters and three grandchildren.”

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Earlier this year “The Monty Heat Treat News” had the opportunity to visit heat treat industry supplier “Avion Europe” at their headquarters in Hagen, Germany-the end result was this article; https://themonty.com/avion-europe-a-growing-force-in-the-german-heat-treat-market-part-1-of-2/ We promised we would keep our readers updated on this growing force in the German heat treat market and as a consequence we have this interview with Mr. Roland Caminades, majority owner of the company. Roland a pleasure always to be speaking with you. Since we last spoke what changes/challenges/opportunities have you seen?

“Thank you Gord, also for me it is always a pleasure to talk to you. I think I have now followed “The Monty” for more than 20 years with great pleasure. Your background information from basically all over the world is always informative and entertaining.

“Well, to answer your question: A well-known phrase is “Time flies when you are having fun” So a lot of things have been happening, but the most breath-taking development happened with our reflective coating “CeraCoat”. For more than 12 years we tried to convince people to save energy with this relatively small investment but did not succeed. Now, with the CO2 debate and the connected charges for emissions people have started to listen. Now heavy weights like Salzgitter Group are using the material and save energy and Co2 emissions up to 10%.

As important for us is the great performance of our Polish office in Swiebodzin which we established last year. Meanwhile we are with two design engineers, our technical director, one sales engineer, an electrical and one mechanical technician. Great guys with a lot of experience in building non-atmospheric furnaces and Endogas Generators. By the way: we did not open an office in Poland because it is cheaper but because the brains are located there.”

February 8th of this year you entered into an agreement with Italian furnace builder Cieffe, an event that you were obviously very excited about, this is the summary; “Italian Furnace equipment manufacturer Cieffe Thermal Systems S.r.l. and Germany based AVION Europe GmbH & Co. KG just announced a formal strategic cooperation for services, spare parts as well as new equipment sale for the German heat treatment market. “Starting from March 1st, 2024, AVION Europe will be engaged with our German customers, suppling original Cieffe spare parts and all services around our furnace lines. This includes brick work, maintenance and revamping or upgrading productive assets to industry 4.0/5.0 of almost 600 furnaces in the German market” explains Peter Schweighofer, CEO of Cieffe International based in Zug, Switzerland.”

So, I have to ask you Roland-how has this partnership worked out so far? Have you done any interesting projects together that you can share with us?

“Yes Gord, the partnership with Cieffe was an exiting moment in the history of our company.

Since Cieffe lost its German representative a couple of years ago Cieffe was not as visible in the German Market for the last 2-3 years. Of course, the customers looked for alternatives.

Now as the representatives of Cieffe in Germany we have to regain trust in the Cieffe brand. We are happy with the first results e.g. modernisation of older furnaces, spare parts sales etc. The sale of new furnace lines easily takes several months and based on the extent of the project even up to two years. Therefore, we are happy to be already considered by some of our clients for projects to be realized within the next couple of months. In close cooperation with our friends at Cieffe we will succeed and regain market share very quickly.”

Let’s switch from “Cieffe” to another company you work very closely with, controls company SSi. SSi has products for virtually every aspect of heat treating but one which I know you have always been excited about is their “Autogen” system for endothermic generators. Perhaps you could explain to our readers why this product has been so successful for you?

“That´s an easy one… because the AutoGen is a great product. It only lets the Generator produce the amount of Endogas that is needed for production, and you do not need to burn excess natural gas anymore. While almost all new generators are built with such a control meanwhile, the Autogen can also be installed as a retrofit for all old generators that still burn excess gas. When I pass a generator in a factory and see the burn-off flame I always see money being fired into the air. Don´t discuss climate change when you are not ready to save gas and CO² with such a small investment. In my opinion it’s a no-brainer…

That’s pathetic and I get pretty emotional when I see that we could do so much for our climate with such little effort. I mean we are not working in the most environmentally friendly industry, and we should do our utmost to do as much as we can when we have the opportunity to reduce the damage that our important industry generates. Especially when you ROI is in less than a year… Again, a no-brainer.

The largest heat treatment show in Germany this year is the HK25 exhibition in Cologne, Germany October 8-10th and I understand you will be co exhibiting with several other companies such as Cieffe, Adencon, Mivia and SSi Super Systems UK. Perhaps you would care to give your co exhibitors a bit of a plug?

“Well, to stay with the SSI products: If you like the idea of the AutoGen come to the show and see the SuperGen…it is already the next generation of add-on control systems for Endogas generators. Easier to install and smarter to control. With Adencon we work together in the field of Vacuum furnaces and represent this Turkish company in the German market. The first furnace is almost finished and due for delivery in October. We are very excited. And then of course our support for MIVIA, the new kids on the block”

Roland, you have told me a little bit about Mivia, certainly enough to “pique” my interest. If I understand correctly, they have a system which will provide an analysis of the microstructure of a part in seconds. I know I and most of our readers would be very interested in more details.

“MIVIA was at the Cologne show last year and we decided to support them based upon what they have to offer. MIVIA found a way to use Artificial Intelligence to evaluate microstructures of metal specimen within seconds. The lab guys do not need to compare the micrographs with photographs of metallic structures with the naked eye. Virtually millions of already evaluated structures are determined by the AI software and the lab guys can use their precious time to do more important things instead of comparing structures with photographs that are 20 years old or even older. Pretty slick in my opinion.”

Roland when we visited you earlier this year you showed us a very impressive new, mesh belt furnace installation at fastener manufacturer Nedschroef in Altena, Germany. Avion sold the system for Sistem Makina and was also installing it, when we saw it was just about to be commissioned. Is the furnace in full production now?

“The furnace is in full production and runs three shifts a day producing approximately 1,000kg/hr. We also modernized 3 other lines damaged in a flood two years ago, they are running flawlessly with AVION’S Scada system. We have to say thank you to all the Nedschroef people for their assistance. Even in the face of some installation problems they were always fair and helped as much as possible. This was and is a great learning curve but at the end we got the job done and now Nedschroef is able to produce automotive and aerospace quality (10.9).”

Related to the question above the furnace was designed and built by Sistem Makina of Turkey and the relationship between Avion and Sistem Makina was relatively new if I remember correctly. Has this relationship lead to any other furnace projects for anticipated projects?

“Since this was our first job with Sistem Makina we did not pursue further projects. We wanted to wait until the furnace was in full production and the support of Sistem Makina continued until the very end of the project. We definitely will continue, and the first project triggered our hunger for more.”

Germany has been in the news quite a bit recently, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons, namely a slow down in manufacturing largely due to energy pricing. How is this effecting the captive and commercial heat-treating industries?

“Your question about the German economy has to be revised after news of today…An old German saying is “ when Volkswagen has a cold, the German economy gets the flu…”The announcement of VW that a closure of production sites in Germany is no longer a “No Go”means an earthquake to the German industry. In combination with the news that ThyssenKrupp in the steel industry is also in trouble the German heat treatment industry (HTI) will suffer tremendously…Still it is true that for us as a small company we will find our niches …But the news of today mean that also the German HTI will see an unprecedented Change for the chances in the future. We still focus on our strengths, but the circumstances changed dramatically.”

Thank you for your time Roland, I very much appreciate it. Sincerely, Gord Montgomery

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August 12^th of this year “The Monty” had a news item about the second largest commercial heat treater in the Chicago area, “Metals Technology Corp.” entering receivership (the original story is further down). The story caught us off guard because this is a much larger than average commercial heat treater and we had heard nothing about financial issues. To give you an idea about the size of the company they have 3 austemper lines, 9 batch IQ’s, 4 endothermic generators, 5 vacuum furnaces, 5 induction systems, 1 automated marquench unit, 6 blast finishing systems and other miscellaneous items.

When we first started tracking down this story, we were told that it was hoped a buyer would be found within 60-90 days-a very short timeline indeed. Well, if the rumors we are hearing are true a buyer has been found. What we have been told is that a very large coating company in the region will be the new owners. While we can’t 100% confirm this, we also have no reason to not believe it. We will keep you updated.

“AUGUST 12, 2024; USA Commercial Heat Treater in Receivership-“Metals Technology”; Yesterday we had a news item entitled “USA Commercial Heat Treater Enters Receivership” https://themonty.com/usa-commercial-heat-treater-enters-receivership/ and as promised “The Monty Heat Treat News” followed up on this story-this is what we found out; While it would be difficult to say this is a good news story, we can certainly claim that it is not a bad story either. The company is a long-established commercial heat treater by the name of “Metals Technology” in Carol Stream, IL, USA https://metalstechnology.com/. Established in 1963 it has consistently had sales of over $14 million USD in the past few years and offers austempering, carburizing, vacuum hardening, induction hardening, marquenching and straightening to name a few processes-all in a 70,000 square foot facility. While the company is temporarily in receivership all suppliers are getting paid on time, all customers are being serviced, no employees are being laid off and plans are that the company will continue operating as it has in the past. Watch for more updates from “The Monty”. https://themonty.com/usa-commercial-heat-treater-in-receivership-metals-technology/”

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Bidding is now open for an auction being held in Vienna, Austria at Opel Gear Manufacturing. The now closed facility manufactured components for automotive transmissions and amongst the items for auction is a large amount of heat treatment equipment. This includes ECM 6-Chamber ICBP vacuum carburizing systems built in 2003, Aichelin Endothermic generators and LOI furnaces. It is very hard to gauge how much interest these items will generate. Certainly ECM, Aichelin and LOI are very respected names in the heat treatment industry, but on the other side of the coin the automotive heat treatment industry in Germany is slow these days and we would assume this will have a very detrimental effect on bidding. We will keep you updated.

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Allied Locke in Dixon, Illinois, USA is one of the premier chain manufacturers in North America and one who firmly believes that heat treating is an integral part of the manufacturing process. Over the course of the past 2 years “The Monty” has mentioned several times about investments the firm is making in their heat-treating department, these investments include new controls and datalogging capabilities provided by SSI, another mesh belt furnace line originally built by Can Eng, more induction capability along with additional batch IQ furnaces. https://www.alliedlocke.com/

The company continues to invest with the most recent plans including two new gas fired, 36″ X 48″ X 36″ batch temper furnaces with nitrogen addition capable of 1400F. The tempers will be provided by McLaughlin Furnace Group of Avilla, Indiana and are scheduled to be installed and running 4^th quarter of 2024. Jeff McLaughlin, founder and owner of the company had this to say;

“We starting speaking with the folks at Allied Locke earlier this year and we have found them a pleasure to work with. They are one of those rare manufacturers who fully understand that heat treating is a very important part of their manufacturing process and have invested accordingly. It is obvious that they are proud of their in-house heat-treating department and everybody from upper management through their metallurgist and heat-treating team goes the “extra mile” to make sure the department is clean, well-organized and up to date. I can’t say enough good things about everybody that we have worked with at Allied Locke.” https://www.mclaughlinsvc.com/

These photos show a typical McLaughlin temper furnace along with some photos of the Allied Locke heat treat department and lab.

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DUAP AG a supplier of fuel injection nozzles in Switzerland has just added pit nitriding capacity. The company operates both as a manufacturer and as a commercial heat treater. The 2 Rohde supplied furnaces have working dimensions of 1500mm x 2000mm with a weight capacity of 3000 kg and a second unit 700mm x 1000mm with an 800 kg capacity. Operating temperature is 750C and both will capable of Nitriding, nitrocarburizing, post-oxidation, stress-relieving and annealing using nitrogen, ammonia and propane.

In addition to the new furnaces DUAP also updated their crane and washing systems. Both furnaces entered production very recently.

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Earlier this year a supplier of aluminum automotive parts completed the installation of a large Roller Hearth furnace line for a facility in Germany. The line was provided by Italian furnace builder IVR, who offers several solutions for heat treating of aluminum alloy products. In this case the furnace will be used for T-4, T-5 and T-6 heat treatment. The furnace has now been in production for several months.

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On a regular basis “The Monty Heat Treat News” keeps you up to date on personnel changes in the global heat treatment industry-here is this week’s update;

Glenn Ottinger, Vitesse Systems; Glenn Ottinger has just been appointed General Manager, USA West Coast at Vitesse Systems. Glenn spent 16 years with ThermoFusion in Hayward, CA, a commercial vacuum brazing firm and we mentioned his name recently when he left the company. “Vitesse Systems is the leading supplier of complex antenna and thermal management solutions critical to the advancement of next-generation Radar, Electronic Warfare and C4I systems.” The Vitesse portfolio includes California Brazing in Newark, CA and Nevada Heat Treat in Carson City, Nevada which is rather interesting.

Scott Calardo, Bodycote; Scott worked with commercial heat-treating giant Bodycote for many years, most recently as Vice President, Capital Projects for the AGI Division. However, things change and he recently parted ways with the company.

Christopher Feisley, Surface Combustion; Christopher has worked for furnace builder Surface Combustion of Maumee, Ohio, USA for a number of years now in different positions, recently he was appointed Product Line Manager, Batch Equipment, Engineered Products. Surface Combustion is ranked by “The Monty Heat Treat News” as one of the 10 largest furnace builders in North America-find out where at https://themonty.com/articles/10-largest-north-american-heat-treat-furnace-builders/

Ramiro Canales, Can-Eng Furnaces International; Ramiro was recently appointed Mechanical Project Leader at Can-Eng Furnaces International of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Ramiro has worked with Can-Eng several times in the past, proving once again that few people ever leave the heat treatment industry after getting a taste of it. Can-Eng is another company ranked by “The Monty Heat Treat News” as one of the 10 largest furnace builders in North America. https://themonty.com/articles/10-largest-north-american-heat-treat-furnace-builders/

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In observance of Labor Day, WG Montgomery Ltd./”The Monty Heat Treat News” will be closed on Monday, September 2. We salute and acknowledge the hard work and dedication of all workers. Normal operations will resume on Tuesday, September 3.

Have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend!

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