For a number of years now “The Monty Heat Treat News” has been putting together an annual list of the “Top 11 Captive Heat Treaters in North America”. This list includes what we believe to be the 11 largest single location captive heat treaters in North America. One that we visited last week in Mexico has never before appeared on our list but that certainly will on this years update is Dana, Toluca, Mexico.

Wikipedia; “Dana Incorporated is an American supplier of axles, driveshafts, transmissions, and electrodynamic, thermal, sealing, and digital equipment for conventional, hybrid, and electric-powered vehicles. The company’s products and services are aimed at the light vehicle, commercial vehicle, and off-highway equipment markets.”

Dana Inc., has had a very strong Prescence in Mexico since back in the 1960’s making them one of the first US based auto parts suppliers to invest in the country. Since that time they have continued to invest and currently have a number of locations including their location in Querétaro which “The Monty” profiled just two weeks ago https://themonty.com/dana-corporation-queretaro-mexico-top-11-heat-treater/

Dana Corporation, Queretaro, Mexico-Top 11 Heat Treater / themonty.com

Our focus today in on the location in Toluca, Mexico which produces transmission components and which as it turns out has one of the largest batch IQ installations in North America. This facility is approximately 16 years old and has a total of 24 batch IQ furnaces, each with working dimensions of 36″ X 48″ X 36″-this makes them the third largest in North America in terms of number of IQ’s, behind one USA facility and one Canadian plant. All of the furnaces rely on an endothermic atmosphere with some of the furnaces incorporating press quenching. For a number of reasons Toluca has always gone the route of batch furnaces as opposed to continuous, most probably because of tighter control and more flexibility. It is no surprise that the plant has CQI-9 certification which the company takes very seriously, currently they are in the midst of updating all of their furnace control and datalogging systems.

Our photos today show the facility as Gord and Jordan Montgomery of “The Monty Heat Treat News” saw it last week and include several members of the SSi team (who are responsible for the controls upgrades) and Juan, the corporate metallurgist who gave us the complete tour.

Dana, Toluca is a pretty typical Dana manufacturing facility in that it is clean and bright with modern equipment and a very strong focus on quality and safety. We thank the entire team at Dana for their incredible hospitality.

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