In Germany we find Mr. Achim Scheider who for his entire working life has been selling heat treat equipment into the European heat treatment market. Over the course of his career he has sold cast and fabricated furnace components and also enjoyed a spell selling new furnaces for Aichelin of Austria. Very recently Achim switched direction slightly and he is now an independent sales representative selling for several companies providing products to the heat treatment industry. These include Wuxi Cast GmbH, Burgdorf GmbH and furnace builder ROHDE Schutzgasofen GmbH. The name of his new company is IndVAS Industrievertretung https://indvas.de/ and Achim can be reached at [email protected]

“The Monty Heat Treat News” Team had the opportunity to travel with Achim several years ago and one of the many captive heat treatment facilities we visited was the SEW Eurodrive location in Bruchsal, Germany which can be seen in this photo. SEW Eurodrive. If you’re in the heat treating business you probably also know SEW because their plants around the world generally include substantial heat treating departments.

The Bruchsal facility is an enormous operation covering many acres and while the heat treat department is large by any standards, it covers a small portion of the overall plant. The heat treatment area is relatively new-the furnaces you see in these photos are approximately 10 years old were built and installed by Austrian furnace builder Aichelin. This is a fairly typical set up for a gear manufacturer-a number of multi chamber batch IQ furnaces with oil quenching designed for case hardening of gears and shafts along with washers, tempers, charge cars, shotblasting equipment and a very complete lab-in short everything required to run a state of the art heat treating department.

The batch IQ furnaces were chosen for the same reason that many manufacturers select them-they are versatile and easily adapt to fluctuating volumes. Even a cursory glance at this picture will show you that this is a meticulously maintained heat treat which is very much in line with the whole plant. While this installation is fairly typical of the heat treat department of a major gear manufacturer we will also say that this is a finer example than many. In this picture you see Mr. Achim Stassen who is in charge of this department (center) along with Achim Schneider and Gord Montgomery.  

Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.

View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/