“The Monty Heat Treat News” learned lots of things at the recent heat treat exhibition, HK 22 in Cologne, Germany and amongst the things we learned is that it is possible to bar code furnace fixturing. A German foundry by the name of Friedr. Lohmann GmbH, one of the largest suppliers of heat resistant castings in Europe was touting the fact that they can now offer bar coding for heat treat fixtures. Mr. Marco Möser, Sales Director of Lohmann in North America (whose recent interview can be found at https://themonty.com/project/marco-moser-sales-director-north-america-lohmann-steel/ ) demonstrated the technology to us at the show and we were suitably impressed. Part tracking and load tracking of parts has become fairly commonplace over the years but bar coding of fixtures, base trays and baskets is a new one on us. With this technology it is now possible to know the exact life span of every alloy component in a furnace allowing users to know with a great deal of certainty what the life is and when replacement fixtures should be ordered.

In this photo we see Marco holding a fairly typical bar code which attaches to the furnace component. We would expect that for the price this technology will become very common in the heat treat industry.

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