For nearly five decades, Heat Treating Services Corporation of America (HTS) has built its reputation on reliability, production capacity, and long-standing client relationships in the thermal processing industry. Since its founding in 1978, the family-owned company has steadily expanded its footprint and capabilities, growing from a single furnace installation into a multi-facility operation serving a wide range of industries.
This heat treater’s story began with a straightforward objective: provide dependable heat treatment. The company installed its first furnace to heat treat steering knuckles for Ford, marking the beginning of a business model centered on responding directly to client requirements.
The company grew by adding equipment and processes to support real production demand, leading to significant expansion. In 1990, HTS purchased its second facility, followed by the acquisition of a third plant in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1996. These additions laid the groundwork for the company’s current scale, operating three primary heat treating facilities totaling more than 161,000 square feet and capable of producing approximately 84 million pounds of heat treated and cleaned parts per month.
Further growth came in the early 2000s as the company expanded its operational footprint and service capabilities. An additional property adjacent to its first plant was acquired in 2002 to support value-added services and logistics, enabling more efficient drop-shipping directly to clients’ end users. In 2005, they expanded again with the acquisition of Trojan Heat Treat in Homer, Michigan, adding a 50,000-square-foot facility focused on non-quench heat treating processes.
Today, the company employs approximately 250 people and supports clients across automotive, aerospace, military, mining, agriculture, and construction sectors, delivering consistent results on high-volume workloads while maintaining the flexibility required for complex components and varied metallurgical requirements.
At the heart of their operations is a broad suite of heat treating services designed to enhance the performance of metal components through carefully controlled thermal cycles. These processes include annealing, quenching, tempering, normalizing, and stress relieving, each applied to improve critical material properties such as hardness, strength, toughness, and ductility. By controlling both heating and cooling conditions, the company ensures that parts meet precise mechanical and structural specifications required for demanding industrial applications.
Much of the production work centers on toll processing of rough forgings and castings. Key processes include quench and temper operations, normalizing, and isothermal annealing. Additional treatments, such as spheroidize annealing, inter-critical annealing, sub-critical annealing, stress relieving, and carbide removal, allow the company to tailor metallurgical properties to a wide range of component requirements.
The company’s equipment infrastructure supports both batch and continuous production environments, handling parts ranging from ounces to more than 750 pounds. High-capacity systems, including a large roller hearth furnace capable of processing up to 10,000 pounds per hour, allow HTS to deliver high throughput without sacrificing process control or consistency.
HTS maintains backup furnaces for critical production lines, ensuring that client work continues uninterrupted even if equipment requires maintenance. This level of preparedness reflects a broader commitment to reliability, one of the qualities the company hopes clients associate with its name. This commitment is reflected in the longevity of their client relationships. A large portion of HTS work comes from clients who have partnered with the company for more than three decades, an indication of the trust built through consistent service and dependable turnaround times.
Over the decades of work, one project stands out as particularly memorable. During Operation Desert Storm, the company heat treated track shoes, center guides, and end connectors for the Abrams M1 tank. The work earned HTS a letter of recognition from General H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., a moment the company recalls as both an honor and a testament to the importance of dependable manufacturing support during critical operations.
Looking ahead, HTS is focused on continuing to modernize its operations. Automation initiatives, paperless processing systems, and the integration of artificial intelligence tools are all part of the company’s strategy to improve productivity and strengthen profit margins in the coming decade.
Through these investments, this heat treater aims to maintain the qualities that have defined its history: fast service, reliable delivery, and the consistent quality that has kept clients returning for generations.
For more information:
Heat Treating Services Corporation of America
217 Central Ave.
Pontiac, Michigan 48341
awhaley@htsmi.com
https://www.htsmi.com/
Main image: Roller hearth furnace 10,000lb/hr process capability; normalizing, isothermal annealing, or oil quench and temper capabilities | Image Credit: HTS
