Monday Morning Briefing
We have always had a real affinity to Brazil and have gotten to know a number of the captive and commercial heat treaters in the country. However as many people know the economy is not good and heat treaters are of course suffering also. Sergio Luiz Figueirego who has long worked as a heat treat rep through his firm Metaltech is unfortunately calling it a day; “I’m closing Metaltech due to the Brazilian economic situation. Several companies and Commercial Heat Treaters have shut down in the last few years. Too many automobiles parts are imported nowadays. I’m selling my inventory and will work more as a consultant and having the Customer importing the products.” Commercial heat treater Metex Heat Treat in Canada is pretty proud of all of the investments they have made in 2018. These included a brand new AFC-Holcroft batch IQ furnace with working dimensions of 36″ X 48″ X 36″, a 3500 pound per hour Can Eng mesh belt line and a really cool SAET automated induction system. This is combined with the fact that they added a fourth facility this year to house all of the new equipment.
So how are we doing these days? According to MTI (Metal Treating Institute) commercial heat treaters are doing darn well in North America which will be no surprise to anybody. 2018 was an excellent year with most months showing double digit growth over the course of the year and this is expected to continue right through the first quarter of 2019. At this point forecasts have things slowing down a bit but nothing really bad on the horizon. Vacuum furnace builder Solar Manufacturing has this update about their new building; “The construction site in Sellersville, PA for Solar Manufacturing’s new building is well under way. The new 57,500 square foot building is dedicated to vacuum furnace manufacturing. As can be seen in the picture, the four bridge cranes are in place, the full plant and office roof is complete, and much of the concrete floor poured. The $8 million plus construction project is being financed through Univest Bank and Trust Co. of Souderton, PA. The general contractor is Gorski Engineering. The project site, Sellersville Business Campus, was developed by the Bucks County Development Authority.”
A company by the name of Flowserve US Inc., is closing their facility in Clarks Summit, USA with the equipment being auctioned off over the next couple of weeks. We mention it because included are a couple of ovens which are nothing fancy but which appear to be in half decent shape. Out in the Los Angeles, California, USA area we see that the relatively new Heat Treatment Australia facility continues to grow with the very recent addition of this SECO/WARWICK vacuum brazing furnace. We expect that we will have more announcement about equipment additions to this facility in the future.
Thermal Product Solutions sent us this press release about a truck-in-oven the company recently shipped. “Thermal Product Solutions Ships Gruenberg Truck-in-Oven to the Oil and Gas Industry. Thermal Product Solutions, a global manufacturer of thermal-processing equipment, announced the shipment of a Gruenberg truck-in-oven to the oil and gas industry. The truck in oven will be used to test parts used for downhole drilling in the oil and gas industry. If you would like more information on this topic, please contact Andrea Strand at (262) 248-0288 or [email protected]. .”
To round things out we have this from Mexico. Last week industry suppliers MATTSA, CRIO, AFC-Holcroft, and SSI hosted Expos Termicos in Queretaro, Mexico. This is an event which is held every two years and includes sponsors such as oil fluid suppliers and lab equipment providers. According to Carlos Torres of MATTSA/CRIO they wanted to create an event which provides education and value to the Heat treat community in Mexico. As Carlos explained “we have noticed that there are many new show or expos in Mexico where the organizers just want to make money on sponsors and that there not many heat treat users at these events, just a bunch of suppliers looking at one another. We include panels and conferences regarding new trends in the market and we really try to focus on added value conferences and not a sales presentation. We brought speakers from high end automotive auditors, heat treat plant mangers who run multiple facilities with different types of heat treat process even university metallurgy professors. It was a real success this year with over 200 heat treaters from around Mexico attending.”