Over the years the team at “The Monty Heat Treat News” has visited literally hundreds of captive and commercial heat treats around the globe and we are constantly asked: “Does heat treatment differ much around the world”? The answer is that except for small differences heat treating is heat treating every where in the world. Granted Europe has more Plasma Nitriding and vacuum furnaces than most other areas around the world and granted that North America certainly has more oil quenching than Europe but again these are small differences. 

A recent tour of heat treats in Italy and Slovenia revealed another difference that we had never noticed before-automated storing and loading of “fixtured loads” (by fixtured loads we mean a base tray, fixturing and parts ready for loading into either a continuous furnace or batch furnace).

In Europe it is quite common to see racks capable of holding several hundred complete fixtured loads-these racks can be 20′ high and 100′ long. They are generally completely fenced in with access only allowed with a key and all handling of the loads is with an automated loader. It is fascinating to see how apparently seamlessly the system works.

While there are similar systems in North America, they are few and far between. We can only assume that because of more limited space in Europe it makes sense to have a storage system with a more compact footprint.

In these photos you see 3 examples, one at commercial heat treater “SHU” in Ulm, Germany (the largest single location commercial heat treater in the world), one at captive heat treater “SIAP Gears” in Italy and a third at commercial heat treater “Gruppo HERA” again in Italy which is in line with two roller hearth furnace lines. 

Again these systems are very impressive-we can only assume that pricing for these systems reflects this. 

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