Consolidated Precision Products Corp.

A Dozen Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current

A Dozen Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current

Heat Treat Today offers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.

Personnel and Company Chatter

  • Patrick J. DeCourcy, who has served as Allegheny Technologies Incorporated’s Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer since 2013, recently announced plans to retire. To ensure a smooth leadership transition, he will remain in his current role until his successor is appointed and will retire from ATI on March 31, 2020.
  • A leading manufacturer of products used in the transmission, distribution, and measurement of water in North America, Mueller Water Products, recently announced plans to build a new, state-of-the-art foundry in Decatur, Illinois. According to Mueller, this facility is expected to be one of the largest finished goods brass foundries in the world.
  • Jerry Bunch has recently joined Pelican Wire as a Design Engineer II, and Larry Brindise has been hired as IT Development Leader. Bunch will be reviewing production processes, ensuring technical oversight to manufacturing steps and working to support the company-wide ‘continuous improvement’ program. Brindise comes to Pelican Wire with some knowledge of the company, as he has previously served Pelican Wire as a professional software consultant. He comes on-board full-time to lead an ongoing ERP project and will continue to develop and implement software solutions to improve the entire customer lifecycle process.
  • It has been announced that Opti-Tech Scientific, a leading Canadian supplier of scientific equipment, will represent Buehler, an ITW Company, in Canada. Opti-Tech Scientific specializes in optical/digital microscopy, metallography, and hardness testing.
  • Allegheny Technologies Incorporated announced it completed the sale of its Cast Products business unit to Consolidated Precision Products Corp. (CPP) of Cleveland, OH.
  • A partnership has been launched between leading Enterprise Artificial Intelligence® provider Noodle.ai and SMS group, which digitalizes plant and equipment used in steel and nonferrous-metals production and processing, to jointly further optimize the world’s first learning steel mill for Arkansas-based Big River Steel. To help Big River Steel conserve resources and control energy output, the joint solution was created by implementing Noodle.ai’s learning algorithms into SMS group’s X-Pact® MES 4.0. Noodle.ai was able to seamlessly leverage the fact that SMS group’s X-Pact® MES 4.0 was engrained into the steel mill’s IT environment and into their SaaS (Software as a Service) applications. The new end solutions digitize applications throughout every stage of the steelmaking process – starting at the liquid phase all the way to strip finishing.
  • Centorr Vacuum Industries announced it has shipped its new Sintervac AM™ furnace for the debind and sintering of additively manufactured parts for a leading 3D/Additive Manufacturing company.
  • A customer needed the lower sidewalls of its forge furnace shotcreted with 90,000 lbs of material. Onex Inc posted a video of the job on Twitter.
  • The Slovakian company U.S. Steel Košice – one of the largest integrated steel producers in Central Europe – placed a major order for the supply of an annealing and coating line (ACL) for dynamo steel strips to Tenova LOI Thermprocess, a worldwide leader in heat treatment lines and furnaces located in Essen, Germany.
  • The Chemical Coaters Association International (CCAI) recently announced the second annual Women in Finishing FORUM will be held at the Embassy Suites South Bend at Notre Dame from May 6-8, 2020.
  • Metal heat treater Exactatherm, based in Mississaugua, Ontario, has been awarded Nadcap Merit status for heat treatment.
  • The International Titanium Association (ITA), Denver, Colo., announces that metallurgist George L. Durfee has been named the recipient of the ITA’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award. A member of ASM International, Mr. Durfee is a metallurgist who built his career around pioneering applied research projects for the titanium industry at forging company Wyman-Gordon Co.

Heat Treat Today is pleased to join in the announcements of growth and achievement throughout the industry by highlighting them here on our News Chatter page. Please send any information you feel may be of interest to manufacturers with in-house heat treat departments especially in the aerospace, automotive, medical, and energy sectors to the editor at editor@heattreattoday.com

A Dozen Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current Read More »

Metals Manufacturer Announces Sale of Heat Treating Facilities, Casting Business

A global metals manufacturer recently announced sale agreements of its divisions to two buyers: two non-core forging facilities to a middle-market private equity investment firm, and its Cast Products business to a manufacturing group.

Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (ATI) has agreed to sell the two non-core forging facilities to Wynnchurch Capital, LLC for $37 million in cash, and its Cast Products business to Consolidated Precision Products Corp. (CPP).

John Sims, Executive Vice President, HPMC segment

The forging facilities, located in Portland, Indiana, and Lebanon, Kentucky, are part of ATI’s High-Performance Materials & Components (HPMC) segment. They use primarily traditional forging methods to produce carbon steel forged products for use in the oil & gas, transportation, and construction & mining industries. They will be sold to Chicago, Illinois-based Wynnchurch Capital, LLC, a leading middle-market private equity investment firm. The transaction will close during the second quarter of 2019.

The ATI Cast Products business unit is part of the High-Performance Materials & Components (HPMC) segment. It produces titanium investment castings that are primarily used by aerospace & defense OEMs in the production of commercial jet airframes and engines. A post-casting machining facility in Salem, Oregon, will remain with ATI and provide services to CPP and others. CPP of Cleveland, Ohio, operates 16 global facilities manufacturing products primarily for the aerospace, defense, and industrial industries and is a portfolio company of Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm. The transaction, subject to customary regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the early part of the third quarter of 2019.

Robert S. Wetherbee, President and Chief Executive Officer of ATI

“[The forging facilities] transaction is consistent with our ongoing efforts to actively evaluate our business portfolio to ensure we’re focused on key growth opportunities for HPMC in the aerospace & defense end-markets, specifically in nickel and titanium products as well as in advanced iso-thermal and hot-die forgings,” said John Sims, Executive Vice President, HPMC segment. “With the sale to Wynnchurch Capital, these solidly-performing, independent operations will become part of a company with a proven track record of investing in, growing and successfully operating industrial manufacturing businesses.”

“ATI’s HPMC segment is at its best when we couple our materials science expertise and extensive forging experience to produce critical jet engine components in our world-class production facilities,” added Sims. “ATI’s Cast Products business is a good fit for CPP’s aerospace and industrial focused business portfolio.”

“We continue to actively evaluate our business portfolio to ensure that we are focused on the businesses that offer ATI the best combination of growth, profitability, and corporate synergies,” said Robert S. Wetherbee, President and Chief Executive Officer of ATI.

Metals Manufacturer Announces Sale of Heat Treating Facilities, Casting Business Read More »

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