“Heat Treat 2025”-Things You Have to Know
The North American heat treatment event of the year “Heat Treat 2025” is being held in Detroit, Michigan, USA this week, October 21, 22 & 23 to be exact. “Gord & Jordan Montgomery” of “The Monty Heat Treat News” will be in attendance along with every major industry supplier and most captive and commercial treaters-in short this event is the one event of 2025 that can’t be missed.
Before you go though here are 10 “trivia” points you need to know to prove yourself a real heat treater;
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The largest single location “in-house” heat treater in North America is the “Ford Motor Company” Sharonville, Ohio, Transmission facility. “We are quite comfortable in suggesting that the Ford Sharonville, Ohio Transmission facility is the single largest captive heat treat facility in North America. Ford was one of the first automotive companies to embrace vacuum carburizing and the end result is that this plant now has 64 ECM LPC cells with 20 bar nitrogen gas quench systems.” “15 Largest Captive Heat Treats-North America”.
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UK based Bodycote remains the largest commercial heat treater in North America. “52 Largest North American Commercial Heat Treaters 2025″
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The title of the “World’s Largest Single Location Commercial Heat Treater” belongs to a German company by the name of “SHU” in Ulm, Germany. This single location has over 500 employees and a truly mind-boggling number of furnaces of all types and configurations.
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Title of the “Largest Privately Owned North American Commercial Heat Treater” goes to “Solar Atmospheres” of Souderton, PA, USA. “Solar Atmospheres” has 6 locations around the USA offering commercial heat treating (mainly vacuum) and two other locations related to vacuum furnace manufacturing which go under the name “Solar Manufacturing”. Total sales for the company in 2024 were $127,534,000.00 USD for all locations. The companies are owned by William and Myrtle Jones.”
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When it comes to the “Largest Number of Batch IQ Furnaces” in one location it is hard to beat “Allison Transmission, Speedway, Indiana”. This facility is the world’s largest manufacturer of fully automatic transmissions for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles. Their very extensive in house heat treating department boasts the largest number of 36” X 48” X 36” batch IQ furnaces under one roof in North America-26 to be exact.
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Commercial heat treater “Nitrex” wins the award for having the “Largest Nitriding Furnace” in North America. This beast has working dimensions of approximately 14′ diameter and 11′ deep with a weight capacity of 80,000 pounds.
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A German company wins the award for the “Largest Commercially Available Pit Carburizing Furnace” in the world. “Haerterei Reese”, a commercial heat treater has a unit with working dimensions of 5 meters in diameter and 5.5 meters deep (approximately 15’ X 16.5’ deep), working in conjunction with this system is a 400,000 litre quench tank 21’ in diameter and 21’ deep and pit temper units. Weight capacity is over 100,000 pounds.
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How many commercial heat treaters are there in North America? It is estimated that there is a little over 500 facilities in North America, certainly down from pre-Covid levels.
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How big is the commercial heat treating market in North America? Estimates vary wildly according to your definition of what constitutes heat treating-the figure we at “The Monty Heat Treat News” use is a little over $3 Billion USD in 2025.
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How large is the total North American heat treat market? Again this is nothing more than an educated guess, but several estimates put the total market in 2024 at approximately $27.6 Billion USD.
So there you go, memorize this trivia about the heat treatment industry and you can impress both friends and acquaintances at this week’s “Heat Treat 2025 Show”. See you there.
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