Monday Morning Briefing

Ipsen, Kleve, Germany. As one of the largest furnace builders in the world we would have to assume that the company needs no introduction. Having said that we at “The Monty” have never had the chance to see the German headquarters of the company which is located in Kleve, Germany-last week we remedied that. Overall Ipsen has 800-900 employees located in several locations of which roughly 200 are in the Rockford, IL, USA plant and 350 in Kleve. The plant in Kleve was established in 1957 and currently occupies over 11,500 square meters in several different buildings. Structurally it is divided into 3 groups; Vacuum Products, Atmosphere (Batch) and Atmosphere (Continuous)-it is interesting that generally the product mix is roughly 50/50 between atmosphere equipment and vacuum equipment but this varies from year to year. If you want a bit of trivia we will add that since 1990 Ipsen has produced over 10,000 furnaces and since 1948 over 20,000. We have a number of photos of the plant, these will get us started.

Left to right; Michael Simon, Gord Montgomery, Bora Ozkan, Olivier Obladen

Mark Debruin New Plant Manager at Certified Heat Treat in Ohio; “Todd McDonald, CEO TPH, is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark DeBruin as Plant Manager of Certified Heat Treating, a commercial heat-treating operation located in Springfield, Ohio.  Mark is a degreed Metallurgical Engineer and certified Six Sigma quality professional with extensive experiences that includes thermal processing and machining of metals. Mark has held a variety of positions including Technical Director, Operations Manager, Plant Manager and General Manager within the steel and iron foundry industry and induction furnace industry. Mark has a focus on continuous improvement and expertise in TS-16949 and ISO 9000 quality management systems. Mark will report to Ken Robinette, Regional Vice President, supporting the growth of Thermal Process Holdings commitment to customer satisfaction, employee engagement and performance excellence. About Thermal Process Holdings, Inc; Thermal Process Holdings was formed by Calvert Street Capital Partners and John Hubbard (former CEO of Bodycote, PLC) to pursue a buy-and-build strategy in the thermal processing industry. The team has a stated goal to build a diversified, professionally-managed thermal processing business generating over $100 million of revenue. TPH currently owns and operates four businesses: Diamond Heat Treat, based in Rockford, IL; Certified Heat Treating, based in Springfield, OH; Hudapack Metal Treating, based in Elkhorn and Franklin, WI; and P&L Heat Treating, based in Youngstown, OH. TPH is actively seeking other add-on acquisition opportunities.”

Also in people news we hear that Michael Cousin who has worked on the new equipment side of things with companies such as AFC-Holcroft and Ipsen just parted ways with furnace builder Diablo Furnaces in the Rockford, IL area. The Heat Treat 2019 Exhibition, Detroit, Michigan, USA October 15th-17th is concluded and we understand that attendance was quite similar to their previous show, back in 2017. This show had a total of 5,201 attending which included 2,135 on the heat treat side of the show and 3,066 on the AGMA side. This meant a total of 195 exhibiting companies over 335 booth spaces. Our thought is that the shear size of the hall made it appear that there was less people at this event than there actually were.

Solar Manufacturing New Facility; “Solar Manufacturing Inc. commemorated the opening of a new, 59,000 square foot plant with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on October 24th. The company, located at 1500 East Clymer Avenue in Sellersville, Bucks County is the first business to build in the newly established Sellersville Business Campus. On hand to celebrate were a number of Bucks County notables, including Thomas C. Hufnagle, mayor of Sellersville Borough; Mary Smithson, chair of the Bucks County Industrial
Development Authority; and Robert G. Loughery, chairman of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners. Building on two of the six lots now occupying land vacated by AMETEK, Solar Manufacturing owners William and Myrtle Jones were keen to breathe new life into the community after AMETEK and its 1500 employees left the area in 2008. “It is important that we invest in our communities,” explained William Jones. “When AMETEK left, they left more than a couple of vacant lots. It’s our goal to grow and support the local economy.” Currently employing 55 people, Solar Manufacturing aims to increase that number as business grows.”  In the photo below we see from the left; “Jerry Gorski, president of Gorski Construction; Myrtle Jones, owner of Solar Manufacturing, Inc.; William Jones; owner of Solar Manufacturing; Thomas C. Hufnagle, mayor of Sellersville Borough; Mary Smithson, chair of the Bucks County Industrial Development Authority; Robert G. Loughery, chairman of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners.”

Remember this news item about Dan McCurdy of Bodycote from roughly a week ago? Well people must really, really like Dan or they just wanted to see him leave the industry-this news items received hundreds of thousands of views and generated pages of “likes on linkedin”, it really was quite impressive the number of people who were interested in this;

“Dan McCurdy/George H. Bodeen Heat Treating Achievement Award. We are really pleased to show you this photo of Mr. Dan McCurdy, former President of the Bodycote, AGD Division in North America shortly after he received the George H. Bodeen Heat Treating at the Heat Treating 2019 exhibition in Detroit (Dan’s wife Kim is beside his side in this photo) Dan recently retired but we at “The Monty” are pleased to say that he is a friend and that very few people in the industry have had such a positive impact. His experience will really be missed.”

To round things out we visited the manufacturing facility of furnace builder Rohde in Hanau, Germany who have several furnaces on the floor ready to ship. One of those which is just about to go out the door is this vacuum nitriding furnace-the owner of the company Mr. Joern Rohde can be seen in front of the furnace,