Die Manufacturer Continues Upgrading Heat Treat Capacities

“Exco” is a global designer, developer and manufacturer of dies, molds, components and assemblies for a variety of industries and more importantly to a heat treat news source such as “The Monty Heat Treat News” a company which firmly believes in investing in the latest and greatest heat treat technologies. 
 
Over the years “The Monty” has reported on several of the firms heat treat investments including this news item from 2023, today we mention another heat treat investment the company is making at their facility in Chesterfield, Michigan, USA. The current heat treating department operates fluidized bed furnaces (as a number of the other Exco locations did in the past), however the plant is in the process of phasing out the fluidized bed furnaces and replacing them with vacuum heat treatment. This brings up the obvious question; is there anybody left in North America who still operates fluidized bed furnaces? The project is expected to be completed by the 3rd quarter of 2025. 
 
This timeline shows the heat treatment investments the company has made over the past 3 years; 
 
Fiscal 2024 
  • Extrusion Michigan’s heat treatment project to upgrade the current fluidised bed furnaces with vacuum heat treatment continues. This project is expected to be completed in Q3 2025.
Fiscal 2023
  • Castool Heat treatment facility completed in Newmarket. With one of the largest heat treat ovens in North America, this facility has the capacity to heat treat parts of extreme size for Die-casting and Extrusion customers. Castool’s facility can meet the needs of Castool and Exco Engineering Newmarket.
  • Extrusion Group Markham heat treatment replacement project completed and running more efficiently than expected. The Board approved Extrusion Michigan’s heat treatment equipment replacement project to implement a vacuum heat treatment facility and replace the fluidised bed furnaces process currently in place. Due to long lead times, this project will likely be completed in fiscal 2025.
Fiscal 2022 
  • Castool Heat treatment – Situated within our existing Newmarket facility, phase 1 of this project was completed in the third quarter of Fiscal 2022. Phase 2 is expected to be completed in the second quarter of Fiscal 2023. This facility gives us the ability to process regular and oversized components, ensure faster delivery to our customers, increase quality control, mitigate risks of relying on a third-party supplier for an essential process and the energy efficient equipment reduces the Company’s carbon dioxide footprint.
  • Extrusion Group Heat Treatment capacity was increased in Texas, added in Mexico. The replacement project in Markham continues and will be completed in early Fiscal 2023.
“About Exco; Exco is a global designer, developer and manufacturer of dies, moulds, components and assemblies, and consumable equipment for the die-cast, extrusion and automotive industries. Through its 21 strategic locations, Exco employs approximately 5,000 people and services a diverse and broad customer base. Each operation constitutes an autonomous profit centre within the Company but draws upon Exco’s pool of expertise and technology.
 
The Casting and Extrusion segment designs, develops and manufactures die-casting and extrusion tooling and consumable parts for both aluminum die-casting and aluminum extrusion machines. Operations are based in North America, South America, Europe, Thailand and Morocco and serve automotive and industrial markets around the world. Exco is a leader in most of its markets which principally consist of North America for die-cast tooling, Europe, North and South America for extrusion tooling and globally for consumable tooling parts and related equipment. Across its markets, Exco is focused on further entrenching itself by reducing lead times and manufacturing costs through design and process enhancements. Major capital projects have been implemented in recent years to increase capacity, reduce lead times, further improve quality and reduce costs. In the machine consumables market, Exco is leveraging its long tradition as a reliable, high-quality supplier of consumable components for the injection system of die-cast machines and aluminum extrusion presses by evaluating, coordinating and ultimately maximizing customers’ overall equipment performance and longevity.”
 
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