Solar Manufacturing Inc.

A Dozen Quick Heat Treat News Items To Keep You Current

The heat treat industry is one of people transitioning and companies executing business, achieving goals, and receiving acknowledgments. Heat Treat Today offers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.

Personnel and Company Changes and Moves

• • At the Executive Council meeting of the International Federation of Heat Treating and Surface Engineering (IFHTSE), D. Scott MacKenzie, PhD., was elected to serve as vice-president for a two-year term (January 1, 2018, to January 1, 2020). MacKenzie, a research scientist in metallurgy with Houghton International, Inc., in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, has been the ASM representative to IFHTSE since 2015.

    

  • Paulo has announced two additions to their Kansas City team. Mike Neumann, who brings 20 years of progressive experience in the heat treating industry, joins Paulo as the plant manager for the Kansas City location, which serves the automotive/heavy truck, aerospace, and railway industries and has a diverse offering of heat treating equipment. Kathy Neumann, who has extensive experience managing multi-plant safety programs for commercial heat treatment and traditional manufacturing companies, joins Paulo as the Director of Corporate Safety based at the Kansas City facility.

  • The Metal Powder Industries Federation (MPIF) has announced that Arthur (Bud) Jones, of Symmco, Inc., Sykesville, Pennsylvania, has been appointed president of the Center for Powder Metallurgy Technology. Jones succeeds Jeff Hamilton of American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc (AAM) – Powertrain, who had completed two terms.

    

    Solar Manufacturing Incorporated, an industry leader in manufacturing advanced industrial vacuum furnaces, is relocating its headquarters to Sellersville, Pennsylvania. The Sellersville Borough Council recently granted unanimous preliminary and final approval for the new building located on a combined 8.5 acres; the manufacturing area will occupy 40,000 square feet of the facility with an additional 17,500 square feet of office space. There is the option of an extra 22,500 square foot addition to the manufacturing building in the future. "I am thrilled to see this project moving forward for our new headquarters.  This new facility will provide us the space we need to grow and consolidate all our staff in one facility," said William Jones, who along with his wife, Myrtle Jones, owns Solar Manufacturing, Inc.  Gorski Engineering is scheduled to begin breaking ground for the new eight million dollar facility in the spring of 2018, with completion and occupancy later that fall.

     

     Equipment Transactions

  • Advanced Heat Treat Corp. (AHT) has purchased a gas nitride unit to expand its capacity for UltraGlow® Gas Nitriding and UltraOx® surface treatment solutions at its facility in Waterloo, Iowa. This new, large, state-of-the-art gas nitride/high temperature unit will also allow increased capacity of currently offered services including gas ferritic nitrocarburizing (FNC) and stress relief.
  • Aerospace heat treating manufacturer Delta H Technologies LLC of Columbus, Ohio, recently supplied a high-temperature heat treating furnace to a major aircraft MRO. The thermal equipment is capable of heat treating titanium, A286, PH stainless steel, and tool steels in an air or argon atmosphere. "This system complements our popular dual chamber aerospace heat treat (DCAHT serie) furnaces for aircraft aluminum," said Ellen Conway Merrill, vice president of Delta H. "Specifically, it provides a complete heat treating furnace system designed exclusively for aircraft MRO back shops, military, aircraft OEMs, and parts manufacturers."

• Ramada Aços has developed "Twin Ovens" in partnership with BMI Fours Industriels, with the first copies already operating at their facilities in Portugal. The furnaces work in an integrated energy management system with only one vacuum pump for both ovens. This solution allows a reduction of the consumption of electrical energy, as well as of the costs of maintenance. The designers plan to integrate a third furnace. The twin ovens have a capacity of over 1,750 lbs. each, increased by 14%, and a temperature of up to 1400ºF.

  

• Ipsen USA recently shipped 15 furnaces to eight states in the United States, as well as Asia and Europe, to support customers in additive manufacturing, aerospace, commercial heat treating, medical and MIM industries. The shipments included: 1) nine TITAN® vacuum furnaces, including three TITAN DS (debinding and sintering) unites, two TITAN LT (low temperature) unitls and several H2- and H6-sized furnaces, all equipped with PdMetrics® predictive maintenance software; 2) three horizontal MetalMaster® vacuum furnaces, each with a work zone of 36" x 30" x 48" and load capacity of 2,000 lbs; 3) two horizontal TurboTreater® furnaces; and 4) one vacuum aluminum brazing furnace with a 1,500-pound load capacity and an all-metal, radiation-shielded hot zone for the aerospace industry.

Accreditations, Certifications, Patents, and More

• Houston Heat Treat, a heat treat service provider located in the Houston, Texas, area, was granted the ABS Certificate of Heat Treatment Facility and Process Approval through the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), January 12, 2018. ABS Approved Quality Assurance Plan includes process and test requirements for ABS and non-ABS grades: carbon and low alloy steels. Processes include annealing, normalizing, quenching and tempering.
• SIFCO Industries Inc’s Cleveland location became the first United States forging manufacturer to obtain NADCAP Metallic Materials Manufacturing certification. The scope of the audit undertaken to obtain this certification included forging equipment and processes to ensure consistency of manufacture. Other processes audited covered billet cutting, preparation, and heating, as well as post-forging operations. With mandates on the horizon from aerospace industry leaders, SIFCO proactively obtained the accreditation to ensure alignment with customers’ supplier quality requirements.

  

• Constellium N.V. was awarded the 2017 Defense Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Achievement Award in the category of Enhancing Military Capability for its contributions as part of the U.S. Army’s Affordable Protection from Objective Threats (APOT) ManTech program. This prestigious award recognizes individuals from government and the private sector whose ManTech projects result in system enhancements to improve military performance. Constellium was nominated for its efforts in development and maturation of the industrial scale processing of aluminum armor plate for forming single piece combat vehicle hulls.  A collaborative team consisting of BAE Systems Land & Armaments, ARL and Constellium developed, fabricated and demonstrated enhanced hull solutions applicable to tracked combat vehicles (military tanks).

• Guill Tool & Engineering, a tool and die and precision machining company for the extrusion and defense industries based in West Warwick, Rhode Island, announced it has been certified by NQA for AS9100:2016 and ISO 9001:2015.  AS9100:2016 is the quality management standard specific to the aerospace industry.

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.