Yesterday as part of our Monday Morning Briefing we include a photo showing Gord Montgomery of “The Monty” along with one other individual with the promise that we would tell you the story behind the picture. Founded in 1979, Especialidades Termicas, S.A (ETSA Group) is one of the two largest commercial heat treaters in the country with 6 locations, Guadalajara, Celaya, Aguascalientes, San Juan del Rio and Mexico City. The company has 350 employees, annual sales close to $20 million USD and a partnership with HEF-France (the salt nitriding people). We’ll give you some more background including the business mix which is 85% automotive/oil components and 15% vacuum tooling. In actual number of furnaces we can say that the company has 6 vacuum furnaces, 4 nitrocarburizing, 20 batch IQ’s, 3 mesh belt lines, 2 large pit carburizers, 4 bell type for annealing and 1 austemper line.

Like so many commercial heat treaters around the world this is a family owned business and the current CEO is Mr. Mario Fabian Mendez son of the founder of the company. Again like many commercials it offers a number of processes but the one which makes it most unique is the fact that a third of their business is continuous heat treating through their mesh belt furnaces. For reasons unknown to us there is little commercially available continuous furnaces in Mexico and ETSA has capitalized on this over the years. Another rather unique feature of the company is that they have an entire division dedicated to rebuilding and installing furnaces.

Commercial heat treaters around the world differ little beyond the processes they offer and ETSA is a good example of a large well run commercial operation with a long track record and a great deal of experience.

  Mario Fabian Mendez, Batch IQ Department

ETSA Celaya Plant-Continuous Department

Salvador Murillo, SSi, Mario Fabian Mendez & Enrique Constantino, ETSA

Pit Carburizing Department

 ETSA Vacuum Department

  ETSA Celaya Facility