Lee Rothleutner

Heat Treat Today publishes twelve print magazines a year and included in each is a letter from the editor. This letter is from the October 2025 Ferrous & Nonferrous Heat Treatments/Mill Processing print edition. In today’s letter, Bethany Leone, managing editor at Heat Treat Today, shares her insights on where artificial intelligence stands in the heat treating industry nine months into 2025.

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In January 2025, the heat treat industry was envisioning operational improvements thanks to leaps in artificial intelligence (AI) developments. Now, nine months later, are we still searching for AI?

Managed by AI

For many industry players, AI has started in the office before the furnace. This can look like creating manuals, writing emails, and reading contracts to interpret legal language.

Daniel Llaguno, president of NUTEC Bickley, calls this the early stages of AI adoption. His company has leveraged AI for onboarding and training new employees — a low-risk, high-value application.

Like many suppliers, they are exploring how AI could eventually reshape furnace development, likely on an open-loop system first (versus a closed-loop where AI receives furnace information and immediately sends back direction to the furnace controls on how to respond).

The Furnace Floor

The next step is already visible: integrate AI into existing IIoT platforms that manage floor operations. Platforms that you may already have considered are QMULUS by NITREX, PdMetrics by Ipsen, and Edge Process Management (EPM Data) by Eurotherm, a Watlow company. These are just a sampling of advanced management systems on the marketplace, and ones that are at different stages of incorporating AI and machine learning for process optimization.

QMULUS has already deployed across all North American Heat Treating Services locations, according to Jason Orosz, president of Global Heat Treating Services. He says AI has been useful in “helping with analysis, troubleshooting, and quality control” — themes you will hear repeatedly in early AI applications.

Evolving To Meet Expectations

What should AI integration into furnace operations look like? Michael Mouilleseaux, general manager at Erie Steel, has commented that heat treat AI should help the industry shed its “black magic” reputation. He envisions advanced analysis that could, for example, “correlate intergranular oxidation (IGO) results with furnace integrity checks (i.e., leaks), eventually establishing hard limits for allowable leak rates.”

Still, obstacles remain. “I think it’s going to be a while before commercial heat treaters can relinquish furnace control over to an AI,” Orosz added, specifically commenting on maintaining furnace parameters. This makes sense due to the need for commercial heat treaters to conform to client specifications. Rather, he says in-house heat treat operations “are likely going to be the first movers in that area since they can make their own rules.” For readers of this publication — who primarily are coming from these types of operations — that should be an encouragement: you have a key role to innovate.

One other key factor for this integration to occur within operations comes with acknowledging the heavy digital capacity that AI requires. Lee Rothleutner, manager of Materials R&D at The Timken Company, commented on this very point, writing to me that for high-quality digital data, the heat treat industry needs to commit not just to the investment but to maintaining a robust data collection and storage infrastructure. He also foresees one pathway of AI integration beyond preventative maintenance, noting, “AI applications can extend to process optimization, quality control, and energy efficiency improvements.”

What To Do Now

For successful integration of AI technology, the common denominator is that management teams are being encouraged to constantly try new ways to innovate with AI.

The first thing you need to do is open an email and send me your AI integration story. Just kidding. (Not really.)

After that, you need to read Peter Sherwin‘s article on page 34 of this issue where he discusses a new development in standardization that should accelerate AI’s role in industry.

Finally, if you are attending ASM Heat Treat 2025 this month, bring your AI to the table … literally, if you have a booth. Showcase what you’ve been doing at your location or become a part of the conversation. Lee Rothleutner, quoted above, will be participating in a panel discussion on this very topic in the afternoon of Tuesday, October 21.

The Heat Treat Today booth is #944. Not everyone is accustomed to the rapid pace of tech adoption; we want to help one another understand the risks and potential that AI brings, and your stories are critical. I look forward to talking with you.

References

Glenn, Doug, and Llaguno, Daniel. 2025. Interview by Heat Treat Today. Private recording, February.

Loepke, Mike. 2025. “Digitalization Propels Heat Treating to Industry of the Future.” Heat Treat Today 7 (8).

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