March 10th, 2025 “The Monty Heat Treat News” had a story about vacuum furnace builder “TAV” landing an order for their “1,001st New Vacuum Furnace”–we learned this very interesting fact during a visit to the firm’s headquarters in Bergamo, Italy (close to Milano, Italy).

During a very interesting visit hosted by Mr. Guido Locatelli (General Manager), Mr. Marco Baretti, (Area Manager) and Mr. Jan Massholder (Managing Director, Furnacare) we learned a number of very interesting facts about the company;

This privately held firm was established in 1984 and remains a privately owned venture. The years have been very kind to “TAV” with the result being that as of 2025 the company has 107 employees with a further 50 at “TAV Engineering” (more on “TAV” Engineering later). The end result? Sales of almost $60 million USD in 2024.

The reasons for this success are many and varied, however in our opinion a large factor is the company’s laser like focus on one technology and one only-vacuum furnaces. The company has never ventured into the “atmosphere” market and as far as we can tell they have no plans to do so.

This focus on vacuum has certainly not stopped the company from entering the “LPC” (low pressure carburizing) arena as we inspected a brand new “LPC” system with 20 bar quenching that “TAV” has in their R & D department,-the “LPC” system can be clearly seen in the one photo in this article.

In the capabilities arena we can say that the company produces both horizontal and bottom loading vacuum furnaces capable of up to 2500C with vacuum levels down to 10-8 Torr (speaking of bottom loading vacuum furnaces you can see a prime example in these photos, a bottom load furnace almost ready to ship to an aerospace customer in India). In addition, “TAV” can make vessels capable of up to 100 bar pressure. On a side note, the firm keeps most of their supply chain local which greatly speeds up delivery time. This includes a local firm being acquired by “TAV”which for years has produced all the chambers required.

“Hot Zone Construction”

Earlier we suggested that part of the success of the company is due to the fact that they focus all of their energy on vacuum technology only-while this true there is another reason “Guido” told us was a factor in their success. “TAV” has always worked very closely with their customers on process development, in other words they help their customers come up with the correct process for their particular parts. This is reflected in the fact that the “R & D” department (shown in some of these pictures) has 4 furnaces entirely dedicated to helping their customers achieve the correct metallurgical results, these systems can also help customers with short term production.

While the Bergamo, Italy location services South America, Europe, Scandanavia and Aisa, North American Sales & Service is handled by the “Furnacare” division of the company located in Spartanburg, SC, USA. This facility was established in 2015 and over the years it has been responsible for selling and installing 75 furnaces in the US-as a matter of fact the US has been the largest market for “TAV” the past 4 years running. As an example of this out of the 11 or so furnaces we saw on the assembly floor, roughly half are destined for the US market.  As mentioned earlier Mr. Jan Massholder is the Managing Director of this facility.

We thank the entire “TAV” team for their time and hospitality.

Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.

View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/