Monday Morning Briefing

November of last year we had this news item; “Big Changes at Retech Systems LLC. Since 1963 Retech Systems has been manufacturing vacuum melting systems in Northern California…but that is all about to change. The next step in the story of Retech comes with a transition of much of the manufacturing and assembly previously done in Ukiah, CA to facilities in Świebodzin, Poland. All of the future work done at the SECO/Warwick facilities in Poland will be per the established Retech standards with the focus on maintaining all expectations associated with the Retech brand. The Ukiah office will be downsized and will retain our experienced engineers, leading technical directors, technologists, and service staff. Key leadership roles will continue to be filled and Retech’s unique R&D Center will continue to be built up. Ultimately, the company will then maintain a west coast office along with the recently opened east coast office in Buffalo, NY.” As a footnote to this story we see that February 28th all of the remaining equipment at the facility in California will be auctioned off. Commercial heat treater East Carolina Metal Treating in Raleigh, NC is pretty please with their new Wisconsin Ovens-all 5 of them. The ovens are Class II and rated fro 1250F.

In Hungary, Lufthansa plans of building a new aircraft repair facility which will include an in house heat treating department; “With the acquisition of property in the Hungarian city of Miskolc, Lufthansa Technik AG today initiated the establishment of a new site for the repair and overhaul of aircraft engine parts. Dubbed Lufthansa Technik Miskolc, a new fully-owned subsidiary of Lufthansa Technik AG will commence operations until 2022 and will utilize around 20,000 square meters of production space. Customers of Lufthansa Technik´s Engine Parts & Accessories Repair (EPAR) network will greatly benefit from this extended production capacity. In the long term, Lufthansa Technik Miskolc will employ around 400 employees. Investments in the triple-digit million-euro range will hence not only encompass state-of-the-art machinery for procedures such as cleaning, thermal spraying and heat treatment of engine parts, but also an extensive training and qualification program.” This picture has absolutely nothing to do with heat treating but it does show our readers in places such as Mexico and India what a Canadian winter truly looks like. In this photo we see Gord and Dale Montgomery standing on 2 feet of ice in the middle of the North American Great Lakes.

Where are they now? Floyd Lancaster. Floyd spend many years involved with the in house heat treating department at auto and truck parts supplier TorqTek in Charleston, SC, USA (which was associated with GETRAG and which became part of American Axle & Manufacturing a couple of years back). Floyd now works for himself under the name Floyd E. Lancaster & Associates and has this summary about the company;  “Represent Companies offering High Precision finish machine components & Vacuum Tool Steel/Brazing for Automotive/Aerospace/Industrial applications. Consult on Metallurgy, Heat Treating, and Materials Engineering.” Commercial heat treater Thermetco in Montreal recently moved into a new building and in the process invested in a number of new furnaces including this brand new Ipsen vacuum hardening furnace. With this addition the company has increased their vacuum hardening capacity by 30%.

With several sintering furnaces in house this news item about Chicago Powdered Metal Products caught our attention; “Chicago Powdered Metal Products (CPMP), Schiller Park, Illinois, USA, has announced the addition of Mark Coughlin as its new General Manager and Dhaval Anand as its new Quality Manager. Coughlin is said to have spent his career in the metal processing industry supplying to the automotive industry, while Anand reportedly has a long history of implementing and driving strategic quality systems that promote company-wide excellence. Prior to joining CPMP, Coughlin was a Process Engineer for fifteen years and an Engineering Manager for two years. Following these roles, he started up a high mix-low volume factory from the equipment purchase through install and full production. He has most recently served as Plant Manager/General Manager at a number of die cast and machining companies. CPMP stated that it looked forward to adding Coughlin’s expertise to help drive improvements and efficiencies for the benefit of the company and its customers. During his career, Anand has reportedly had success in quality and engineering roles and CPMP expects that he will bring his experience in leading quality teams to promote a high level of control and maintenance to the company’s quality systems. “

Dustin Lawhon was recently promoted to Regional Sales Manager at Paulo Heat Treating where he will be covering the Great Lakes Region. Paulo is the second largest commercial heat treater in North America (remember you can find our list of the 10 largest commercial heat treaters in North America at https://themonty.com/largest-commercial-heat-treaters-in-north-america-october-2018/ )

And to round things out for today we have this press release from Wisconsin Oven. “Wisconsin Oven Ships Horizontal Quench Solution Treat System to a Supplier of the Aerospace Industry; Wisconsin Oven Corporation announced the shipment of one (1) Electrically Heated Horizontal Quench Solution Treat System to a supplier of the Aerospace industry.”