Back in 2009 furnace builder JL Becker, Co., (acquired by “Gasbarre” in 2011) working with commercial heat treater “Woodworth, Inc.”, in Flint, Michigan, USA revolutionized the automotive brake rotor sector by offering FNC (ferritic nitrocarburizing) in large tip-up furnaces. 

The benefits of the process were readily apparent and combined with the economy of scale offered by the very large volumes (50,000 pound loads as an example) the tip up furnaces were capable of meant that the process was quickly adopted by most of the large automotive companies. This success propelled Woodworth into one of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America “52 Largest North American Commercial Heat Treaters 2025”. 

This success lead another other commercial heat treaters to enter this market, US based “Paulo” (now part of “Aalberts Surface Technologies”) set up a plant in “Monterrey, Mexico” in 2018 offering the same process in the same furnaces. The subject comes up today as “Aalberts” has recently been “showcasing” the plant, this includes these very interesting pictures showing one of the furnaces both empty and full.