Furnace Builders Unite to Offer Engineering Services?
“The Monty Heat Treat News” has learned that two manufacturers of new thermal processing systems are in serious discussions to jointly offer engineering services not just to the heat treatment industry but all industry around the world. McLaughlin Furnace Group of Avilla, Indiana and ION HEAT of Medellín, Colombia have been working towards an agreement whereby they would offer their engineering services to companies around the world while adding engineering capabilities in a variety of locations around the world known for their expertise and their low cost of doing business. ION HEAT as an example has a team of very experienced engineers who can offer their services at very competitive pricing because of the lower cost of doing business in Colombia, an advantage which is paired with very high levels of education in the country with an emphasis on engineering.
Jeff McLaughlin, CEO of McLaughlin Furnace Group had this to say; ” For some time now we have been speaking with Andreas Bernal, CEO of ION HEAT and over the course of the past two years we have come to have a mutual respect for each other. Our conversations have progressed to the stage where we are talking about how we could collaborate on new projects-engineering services would appear to be an obvious one. The basic concept is to utilize the experience of engineers in lower cost areas to help manufacturers around the world with their manufacturing needs. It is well known that good, experienced people are hard to find in North America and Europe, we aim to fill that void”.
Jeff went on to say that undoubtedly some people will question why he is embarking on another new project when McLaughlin Furnace is staying so busy; “I can’t help myself I love new projects and new challenges and this appears to fill a real void while at the same time helping our design capabilities at McLaughlin. Certainly over the years I have been accused of being a man in a hurry, a pushy SOB might be a better way to describe myself however this is what I live for, new challenges.”
While it would appear that this project is still in the planning stages it sounds like both sides are working towards making this happen. We will keep you posted.
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/
Jeff McLaughlin, Jimena Bernal, Andreas Bernal, Steven Sossa