Happy July
Fourth to our
American Friends

themonty.com
will be updated
again on Monday
July 7th
The Best Commercial Heat Treater to Work for in North America. Last week we asked for comments about who the best commercial heat treater in North America is in terms of working for them. We’ve got comments, however human nature being what it is individuals would rather complain about a bad employer than rave about a good employer. The most interesting comments we received so far came from an individual by the name of Ray Whitton of Michigan who sent us a rating system mentioning several commercial operations he has worked for over the years. Watch for further comments over the next few days and please send us your votes. July 3/08
“Good Afternoon, OK, I just had to throw my two cents in on this article! I have worked for a few different heat treats in the Detroit – Metro Area since 1979, and I have to say – the best? (and to think, back then, they were all family owned and operated!!). How about a rating system instead?!?! Because from my first days though today the plants and equipment/processes have improved 10 fold, but as our economy has gone up and down like an out of control – control chart, the benefits are going by the wayside or should I say – we pay more!! Each company I’ve worked for has different work conditions, building size, equipment, quality systems, procedures and rules (including owners, managers and other personnel you had to work with) – so a lot of thought had to go into my ratings.
(See attached rating chart). But after doing the chart, I’d have to rate my first heat treat (Sterling and not just because it was family), was the best because it was in a simpler time. Yes the equipment and methods might not work today, but it was a lot hot, dirty work that was fun to learn (from the old timers of course), from the ground up. Sure a lot different than bumping & painting cars for a living. Keep up the good work with the Monty!! Ray Whitton.”
Who Are The Best Commercial Heat Treaters to Work for?
My Rating System: “5” – Best and “1” Worst
|
Company |
Most Flexible |
Best Benefits |
Working Conditions |
over all Work Environment |
The Best |
Notes |
|
Sterling Steel Treating |
5 |
5 |
4 |
3 |
17 |
Grandfather Owned, Union, good old tool and die days! Lot of fun learning a new business from the ground up. Sure glad we didn’t know how bad some of the processes were for you! |
|
Commercial Heat Treating |
2 |
1 |
3 |
3 |
9 |
Union, 89 days and out, never really got a good chance. |
|
Metropolitan Heat Treating |
3 |
3 |
3 |
4 |
10 |
First taste of production, Customer SPC requirements, Military work. |
|
Woodworth Industries |
3 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
13 |
Got so tired of training and then losing them to other shifts. |
|
Clarkston Metallurgical Processing |
3 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
14 |
First taste of running a heat treat, steep learning curves, long hours & on call 24/7 – overwhelmed but fun! |
|
Woodworth Incorporated |
4 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
15 |
New and different methods of heat treating, lab and quality!! |
|
RMT Woodworth Heat Treating |
4 |
2 |
5 |
4 |
15 |
New plant - a large volume operation that was a lot of work and fun to get started and all systems in place and certified. Now we just need more customers than just one!!! |
Used Equipment Available.
We have an excellent
condition
Inductoheat Lift and Rotate
Machine. Carbottoms are
relatively hard to find but we
now have two more to offer
Tempering Ovens
with asking prices now
included. We have a number of new
pieces of used equipment
including an
Abbott Model
6ZSCR-18-432HH6-VC-2150
mesh belt furnace which
was used for annealing
knife blades but could
also be used for
sintering and a very
unusual item a
Batch
Austempering Line.
Nothing fancy but on the
vacuum page several older,
smaller vacuum furnaces are
now priced at $10,000 USD
each.
Several interesting used
furnaces have come up in the
past few days
one of which is a
1bar 1980 Model Vacuum
Furnace which certainly
looks good. 3 very basic
drive-in
Aging Ovens
have come up and we were able to reduce pricing on two very
nice
Recirculating Air Belt
Tempering Furnaces.
The price has just been lowered
on a beautiful
CI Hayes Vacuum
Furnace.
Available on the salt page is a
Salt Bath System
less than 8 years old that was
over $600K new. We can assure
you that the asking price is now
far less than that.
With
alloy costs the way
they are these days everybody is
looking for a way to save. We
have some suggestions; first is
a number of 24” square alloy
trays for Holcroft
Pusher furnaces with corrugated
boxes to go with them
Cast Alloy Trays
Second is fixturing for pit furnaces
alloy Furnace Components
We realize rotary retort
furnaces are not in great demand
but if you need one we have
several incredibly well priced
ones
AGF Rotary Retort Furnaces
Looking at the vacuum side of
things we go to a very recent
addition, a great condition
Abar 3000ºF Vacuum
Furnace
which joins another two recent
additions an
Ipsen VFC-321 Vacuum Furnace
and
Ipsen
VFC-321R Vacuum
Furnace
Three recent pieces of
equipment that just today saw a
price reduction are an
Ipsen Tempering Furnace,
an
Ipsen 3000 CFH Endo Generator
and a
Precision Quincy Tempering Oven
We will stress that not all of
the used equipment we are aware
of is listed on our site so if
you don’t see what you are
looking for just ask.
July 3/08
Solar Atmospheres. The largest vacuum commercial heat treater just keeps on growing. Not that long along a go a news item we had told you about their very ambitious plans to expand into California with a "Greenfield site". With the press release below it is clear that this plan is moving along as they have hired a President for the California operation. July 3/08
"Souderton, Pa.
— Roger Jones,
Corporate
President,
announces the
hiring of Derek
Dennis as
President of
Solar’s new
California heat
treating
company: “Derek
comes to Solar
with a wealth of
heat treating
and management
experience,
primarily from
the aircraft and
petrochemical
business as
former Director
of Operations
for Valley
Metals and
Manufacturing
Manager for Jet
Products (Senior
Aerospace) both
of San Diego,
California. He
also served in
the US Marine
Corps as an
Aerial Navigator
and Crew Chief.”
According to
William R.
Jones, CEO:
“Derek was
carefully
selected to head
the new company
after reviewing
numerous
applicants”. His
strong points
are his life
long ties to
California, his
managerial
experience, and
knowledge of the
metals business.
Derek’s first
assignment will
be to select a
plant site with
a primary focus
on the Inland
Empire, just
east of Los
Angeles, where
an experienced
labor pool is
available and
several
potential plant
sites exist.
According to Bob
Hill, Solar’s
President of
Western,
Pennsylvania
operations, who
did advance
marketing
research for the
project: “Our
aim is to
install large,
high tech
furnaces and
provide high
quality
operations not
currently
available on the
West Coast.”
Business
Opportunities.
Phoenix Heat
Treating Inc is
looking for
Sales/Marketing
Individual. Thermal
Processing located in
Clintonville, WI is
looking for a
Business Unit Manager.
Experienced Fastener
Professional Engineer
with 35 years of
experience is looking
for employment.
Klein Tools is looking
for a
Heat Treating Supervisor
with at least 5 years of
experience. A
commercial metal
heat-treating company
located at Pomona,
California is looking
for an
Maintenance Engineer.
A
Heat Treating Salesman
is looking for
employment. Heat
Treatment Australia is
looking for
Heat Treatment
Supervisors & Operators
to work in their
Brisbane, Australia
plant. Fancy
moving to
Australia mate? Are you
a NADCAP approved
commercial heat treater
in the Michigan, USA
area that can
harden and oil quench
large diameter rings?
Then we have an
opportunity for you!
A Heat Treat Company
located in the Midwest
is looking for a
Quality Manager and
Specialty Heat Treating
is looking for
Various Heat Treat
Positions.
Nabertherm Inc. is
looking for a
Technical Sales Engineer
for their Delaware
location, and we have
an
Experienced Heat Treat
Consultant.
2 companies looking for
people:
wanted a
Degreed Metallurgist
& a
Process Metallurgist.
We have an
Experienced Engineer
primarily in the field
of vacuum technology & a
Metallurgical Engineer
with over 18 year
experience. Ever have
the hankering to be
President of a large new
furnace builder? This is
your chance. A global
provider of furnace
process technology and
equipment is searching
for a
President to head up
their North American
Division. AFC-Holcroft
has the following
positions available -
they are looking for
Experienced Engineers
for
Sales Opportunities
and individuals
for
Industrial controls
engineer/software
development.
July 3/08
What are the factors that influence the hardenability of steel? One of the best heat treat consultants in the business continues to give us his words of wisdom, David Pye, Pye Metallurgical davidpye@pyemet.com July 3/08
Answer: The hardenability of a steel is its ability to respond to heat treatment and depth of hardening. The depth of hardening is usually the distance below the surface of the steel at which a level of 50 HRC has been reached. It can further be defined as the distance below the surface at which martensite has reached a minimum percentage. This of course will depend on the alloy analysis and the carbon content. The factors which will influence the steels hardenability are:
· Cross sectional area
· Austenitizing temperature
· Quench medium
· Rate of cooling
· Steel chemistry
Peter Minarski/ALD. It is with great regret and genuine sadness that we mention today the passing of Peter Minarski, President of ALD, North America. Peter passed away at Hanau hospital on Sunday, June 22, 2008 at the age of 51 after contacting a very rare nerve/muscle disease. Peter achieved his PhD at the University of Aachen, Germany before joining Degussa Heat Treatment in 1990. In the mid 1990’s he was transferred to ALD (New Vacuum Carburizing furnaces and commercial heat treating) when Degussa changed names and ownership in the mid 1990’s. Over the next almost 20 years he was involved in R & D developing special nitriding technologies and plasma carburizing processes as well as being VP of Sales for vacuum carburizing and high pressure gas quenching in North America. He was one of the pioneers at ALD in developing their “Own & Operate” strategy (commercial heat treating). As such he built ALD’s first location Vacuheat at Limbach, Germany (a photo of which is below) and then continued on to develop the locations in Blythewood / SC and Port Huron / MI, USA as well as the operation in Ramos Arizpe which started production just a few weeks ago. As well he was managing director of ALD’s “Own & Operate” group, President of the US and Mexican subsidiaries and member of the board of ALD-Holcroft.
His background shows a long time experienced heat treater, having met Peter personally many times I can give him my highest compliment-a good man! The photo below was taken at Vacuheat in Limbach, Germany January of 2005. Peter is on the right, Gord Montgomery (themonty.com) on the left and Luis Martinez (ALD) in the centre. As a footnote to this story we understand that a good personal friend of ours, Robert Peters of ALD will be named the new Vice President of ALD, North America. July 2/08

Total Trac Systems, Ltd. Our newest advertiser is a company by the name of Total Trac Systems and this is how they describe what they do. July 2/08
Total Trac Systems, Ltd is a software development company specializing in software for metal working industries. The company was created in 1989 by William Richard, Jack Richard, and Dr. Z. Ordanic. Mr. William Richard and Dr. Z. Ordanic hired from IBM where they had developed the first supermarket barcode system. In creating the Total Trac Systems, Ltd they have decided to apply their special skills to produce the barcode process tracking system especially suited to heat treating and similar metal processing industries. Jack Richard, as the owner of Albany Metal Treating company, had provided detailed requirements, participated in testing the product and went on line in 1991. Along with the input from its early customers, Total Trac Systems has succeeded in providing a comprehensive management system, possibly the only total software package you will need in your plant, and assured the satisfaction of the loyal customer base.
The Total Trac Systems keeps all collected data in an SQL database, including the data read from the controllers and various sensors, as well as all production records. With the barcode system the production tracking can be done almost effortlessly. As it turned out such system is well suited for meeting the requirements of CQI-9, ISO-9001, and other quality systems."
Your Worst Nightmare or a Very Competent Heat Treater? The answer of course is the latter. Phil Terry, Divisional Metallurgist for Lufkin Industries in Lufkin, Texas, USA http://www.lufkin.com/ is a top notch guy and a top notch heat treater for Lufkin Industries in Texas. Blatantly stealing from their website this is a very brief description of what the company does “Founded in 1902, Lufkin Industries Inc. is a vertically integrated company that designs, engineers, manufactures, sells, installs and services high quality and high value-added oil field equipment and power transmission products across the globe.” In the photo below you see Phil at the USPSA Arkansas Championships where he finished High Senior for the division he shot in-very impressive! July 1/08

United Process Controls (UPC for short). UPC was formed some time ago and is a collection of several furnace controls companies. While we are still not sure of what direction the companies will take it is an interesting press release below. July 1/08
"Bodycote Thermal Processing (Huntington Park, CA) has acquired three gas nitriding installations based on the UPC Protherm 500 programmable controller and the H2Smart hydrogen analyzer from United Process Controls. These include two pit-type NP-1020 turnkey systems complete with furnaces and one upgrade for an existing furnace. All three systems will be primarily used for nitriding stainless steels. In addition, an IN-500 exhaust gas neutralizer will assure the furnaces’ environmental friendliness. Installation and startup are scheduled for the second quarter of 2008. United Process Controls is a new alliance of five recognized companies within the heat treating industry (Furnace Controls, Marathon Monitors, Nitrex Metal, Process-Electronic and Waukee Engineering) that share a common vision: first, to fill the needs of customers for industry-leading control solutions, and second to enable customers to get easy-to-access support through our worldwide sales and services network."
Bluewater
Thermal Changes.
Lots of changes
going on at
Bluewater
Thermal, one of
the largest
commercial heat
treaters in
North America.
While we have
heard of a few
equipment
changes the main
focus that we
are hearing
about so far is
new hiring's.
Below you can
read about two more
changes in
personnel. At
the risk of
offending Jim Hedman that name
is very familiar
but we can’t
quite place it.
July 1/08
"Bluewater
Thermal Services
has named Jeff
Hemmer to the
position of
Director -
Operation
s.
“Jeff brings
more than twenty
five years
of experience in
heat treating,
but more
importantly, he
is a widely
respected leader
in the industry
for his
commitment to
superior customer
service, his
energy level,
and his
problem-solving
expertise”
commented
Bluewater C.E.O
Jeff Gwinnell.
“Jeff will be
working across
the company to
further improve
our overall
capabilities to
service our
customer’s most
challenging
programs.”
Bluewater has
also named Jim
Hedman to the
new company-wide
position of
Engineering
Manager.
“Amongst the
heat treat
technical
community, Jim
Hedman is
renowned for his
very broad and
deep experience
base, and
Bluewater will
benefit from his
skills in
multiple
technical areas
right across the
company”
commented
Gwinnell
“Bluewater’s new
tag-line is
Dedicated.
Professional.
Expertise. Jim
Hedman’s career
and capabilities
can be summed up
in those three
words.”
Who Are The Best Commercial Heat Treaters to Work for? We are going to do a very informal poll about which commercial heat treaters in North America are the best to work for. What we are looking for are comments, either anonymous or much preferably with names attached about what companies treat their employees the best. Who are the most flexible, offer the best benefits, working conditions and overall work environment? While it would be interesting to hear which companies are the worst to work for we will not print comments talking about the “XYZ” company being a bunch of SOB’s to work for. So if you’re pleased with the company you are working for just let us know, we will gladly print your thoughts and at the end of the day we will see which companies come out on top. June 27/08
John Deere/Greenhouse Gas Emissions. John Deere is another very large manufacturer who has jumped upon the “Greenhouse Gas Emissions” bandwagon. This has become a very large issue amongst manufacturers and heat treaters and we personally have run across this a number of times in the past little while, most recently at Pratt & Whitney. While we think that the whole story about greenhouse gas emissions is a bunch of crap we will also say that it is to their credit these large companies taking an interest in environmental issues. Like it or not greenhouse gas emission issues and carbon taxes are with us in one form or another. June 27/08
"Deere & Company today announced plans to further reduce its total global greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent per dollar of revenue from 2005 to 2014. The company has committed to the reduction goal in conjunction with its participation in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Leaders program, which Deere joined in 2007. Deere's direct greenhouse gas emissions come from operations such as foundry, heat-treat, painting, powerhouse, and testing. Indirect emissions result from demand for electricity or steam."
What is Martensite and how is it formed? From David Pye comes these words of wisdom about how Martensite is created. June 27/08
"Answer: The transformation to Martensite has to be created. The transformation is not a 'natural' transformation. The transformation will occur when heat is applied to steel containing sufficient carbon in solution and its temperature raised to a selected point above the A1 line on The Iron Carbon Equilibrium diagram. Once this has been accomplished, then the steel is forcibly cooled (water, air, or even gas). In this diffusive precipitation of austenite into the two phases of ferrite and carbides is suppressed. The carbon content of martensite will correspond to that carbon in austenite. The formation of the martensite phase is a progressive transformation, and occurs as the steel is cooled rapidly past the left hand side of the nose of the curve on the Time Temperature Transformation diagram. The transformation will commence at the Ms point on the TTT diagram. It will progressively transform to martensite depending on the rate of cooling and the carbon content of the steel. (Martensite Transformation) Once below the Ms line, then the transformation to martensite is rapid. As the carbon content of steel is raised, and then the Ms transformation temperature will be reduced."
Another reader had this to say;
"Gord, The temperature that the part must be heated to, while it is over the A1 temperature, is almost always over the A3 temperature, the upper critical. Over this temperature the part is completely austenitic. If you are in between the A1 and A3 temperatures you can have austenite and ferrite (at carbon < 0.8%) or austenite and cementite (at carbon > 0.8%). Our old rule of thumb is that you austenitize 50-100F over the upper critical. I’ve always taught students that what we are doing is trapping the carbon in the structure by quenching and not allowing it to precipitate out as cementite. Since the carbon is trapped, the structure cannot be the same as it was and therefore is stressed and has to transform. The martensite transformation is diffusionless – there is no movement of atoms, but just a rearranging of the crystal lattice. That is why it is a rapid transformation."

"Ipsen deploys North America Service Vans 6/26/08 (Rockford, IL) Ipsen deploys a full line of new service vans for North America stocked with critical parts and essential equipment for on-site service. This allows Ipsen’s field service engineers to quickly meet customer’s service requirements on-site, reducing downtime by carrying an inventory of OEM parts. Ipsen’s field service engineers have the technical experience you need should an emergency arise. They are located throughout North America and support all of our furnace installations worldwide. No matter where you are located, the Ipsen support team will deliver prompt, expert service to keep your process running smoothly. Ipsen, Inc. designs and manufactures industrial vacuum furnaces and supervisory control systems for a wide variety of thermal processing markets including: aerospace, commercial heat treating, medical, nuclear, chemical, tool & die and automotive. Ipsen, Inc. is one of the largest manufacturers in the world of vacuum and atmosphere heat treating furnaces for the thermal processing market. Ipsen also employs the largest and most skilled aftermarket & service support team in the business to meet its customers’ needs for controls upgrades, replacement hot zones, parts, maintenance and service. Ipsen, Inc. maintains manufacturing plants in Rockford IL and Souderton PA." June 27/08
Chrysler/Marysville, Michigan. It was just last year that Chrysler announced plans for a brand new axle plant in Marysville, Michigan to replace a very old facility in Detroit known as Detroit Axle. Detroit Axle by the way is an enormous captive heat treating operation with seven six-row Holcroft pusher furnaces in operation. The groundbreaking in Marysville was May 2007 and it crossed our radar because it resulted in a very nice new furnace order for Williams Industrial Service Inc., in Bowling Green, Ohio. Everything has changed and earlier this year Chrysler tried to find buyers for the plant, a search which seems to still be unsuccessful. While it would appear that the plant will still be built and Williams has kept building the furnaces (several pusher carburizers) we would not want to be in the shoes of "Williams" at this point. Our understanding is that the furnaces are pretty well finished or almost finished but Williams has been forced to accept a price cut (like most Chrysler suppliers) and with everything so much up in the air it is not a good situation for anybody involved in this project. June 26/08
Universal Separators/Smart Skim. Smart Skim is one of the best if not the best known name in the industry when it comes to oil/water separators. Business must be good for them based upon the changes mentioned below. June 26/08
"June 24, 2008 Madison, WI: Universal Separators Inc., the manufacturer and marketer of the SmartSkim product line is pleased to announce the hiring of Bill Grimes as a new Regional Sales Manager. Bill joins the company with extensive fluid management experience, including work at GM, BP Castrol and Daimler Chrysler. Bill’s territory includes Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Ontario. Bill will be located in the Detroit area and can be reached at 810-867-4581. Universal Separators is also pleased to announce that Ron Sviben of TLG Industries, Inc., will serve as a manufacturer’s representative for the SmartSkim product line. Ron will provide representation throughout the West Coast. Ron resides in the Los Angeles area and can be reached at 310-379-6876. Finally, in an effort to manage the accelerated growth that Universal Separators has experienced over the past year, Bill Gimbel has been promoted to Vice President of Sales. Over the past 4 years Bill served as the company’s National Sales Manager. In his new role, Bill will manage the company’s sales’ efforts into previously underserved geographies and industries."
What are the characteristics of a gas nitrided surface layer after nitriding? David Pye davidpye@pyemet.com June 26/08
"Answer: The surface of the nitrided layer can be broken down into two distinct categories. The immediate surface is what is known as the compound layer and the second is to be seen immediately below the compound layer and is known as the diffusion zone. The immediate surface layer which is the compound zone will generally comprise of two phases. The first phase being that of Gamma Prime phase and the second phase being that of the Epsilon phase. The steel analysis will determine which phase is the dominant phase. However, it is generally 50% Gamma Prime Phase and 50% Epsilon Nitride phase. If the carbon content of the steel begins to exceed say 0.40%, then the dominant phase will be the Epsilon phase. This phase is very hard and brittle and will not resist impact, but will improve wear characteristics. Another feature of the immediate nitrided surface is, that dependent on the dominant phase that is formed, the corrosion resistance of the steel will be improved."
John Giannelli/PPC. From experience we have learned that one of the hardest positions to fill in the commercial heat treating industry is that of an experienced sales person.. The industry being such a small insular one there are just plain not that many. John Giannelli has been involved with sales for Atmosphere Annealing (commercial heat treating) for almost 17 years before very recently making a move to PPC in Canton, Ohio (again commercial heat treating). June 25/08
Effective Case Depth/Total Case. Today David Pye davidpye@pyemet.com informs us about the difference between Effective case depth and Total case. June 25/08
"Question: What is meant be Effective case and Total case?
Answer: Effective case is the case depth that is measured by a transverse hardness traverse. This is a hardness traverse through a cross sectioned component or test coupon from the surface to where the hardness value meets 513 Hardness Vickers. This can be converted to approximately 50HRC. Total case is defined as, the core hardness of the steel plus 50 Hardness Vickers points or core hardness plus 5HRC scale points. These values are defined by The International Standards Organization"
Can-Eng Normalizing Furnace. Can Eng would be one of Canada's largest builders of new furnaces. The press release below doesn't give us a great deal of information but interesting none the less. June 25/08
"Can-Eng Furnaces International Limited, recently completed the replacement of a 120 foot long water cooled roller hearth section on a 15,000 lb/hr tube normalizing furnace at major American based mechanical tube production facility. The furnace operates under dry EXO gas for the normalizing process. The new equipment incorporated a number of material and design improvements over previous installations to ensure both long service life and access to the roller hearth interior via a removable roof that utilizes a unique roof to sidewall seal. The removal of the old cooling sections and installation of the new equipment was undertaken over a short duration scheduled shutdown and the new equipment was up and running within 7 days."
Largest Asian commercial Heat Treaters. In our ignorance and naiveté we felt it would be a reasonably easy job to find out the largest commercial heat treaters in the Asian market. How wrong we were! In spite of the fact that we had assistance from a half dozen heat treaters in areas such as India, Taiwan, Thailand and China at best we have come up with a list of some of some of the most significant heat treaters in this market. What we can tell you is that the Asian market is dominated by Japanese companies, the Taiwanese market while a large one consists mainly of small to medium sized operations and Indian commercial heat treaters while large and getting larger we don’t believe would make our list of the largest in this area. To make our job harder most of the large Japanese heat treaters are part of larger conglomerates which means sales figures for their heat treating alone are very difficult to come up with. To further complicate the issue two companies that did make our list Thyssen Krupp and Assab International are steel companies and again it is almost impossible to estimate how much of their revenue is from commercial heat treating. While they didn’t make our list 3 companies that we did consider were “Kaori Heat Treatment Company” in Taiwan, “Hightemp Furnaces” in India and “Bharat Gears”, also in India. Without further preamble here is our list of the 8 largest commercial heat treaters in the Asian market. As usual reader input about whether we are off the mark or not is appreciated. June 24/08
1) Nihon Parkerizing. http://www.parker.co.jp/index_e.html As far as we have been able to tell Nihon Parkerizing if the largest commercial heat treater in the Asian market. A large part of their heat treating is salt based upon the former Degussa Tennifer (MELONITE) technology. The company while concentrated in Asia has operations around the world making metal components, distributing products, heat treating and other services. To give you an idea they have over 1,000 workers in Thailand alone and over 20 seal quench lines just in Thailand.
2) TOHKEN THERMO TECH CO. LTD. One of the largest commercial heat treaters in Japan with a number of locations in Japan, one in Thailand and one in Malaysia. By anybody's standards a very large, well established heat treater that has been around since 1927. http://www.tohken.com.my/Tohken%20Thermo%20Tech%20.htm Overall sales for the company as a whole are between $70 and $80 million USD. Tohken Thermal (Japan) 9 plants in Japan, 5 Thailand and 3 in Malaysia They do heat treatment and PVD coating services.
3) DOWA in Japan, Thailand and the USA. Dowa is one of the giants in the industry both when it comes to commercial heat treating and building new furnaces. They have numerous heat treatment facilities in Japan and operations in Thailand, USA and others as they tend to follow Toyota and Honda. (1) Dowa Holdings Co., Ltd. consists of five member companies such as Dowa Metals & Mining, Dowa Eco-Systems, Dowa Electronics Materials, Dowa Metaltech and Dowa Thermotech. http://www.dowa.co.jp/index_e.html USD90 to 70m range One which certainly deserves to be on the list is Dowa Thermotech who had 2005 sales of $193 million USD for their new furnace business and commercial heat treating division. Our belief is that roughly 60% of total sales are commercial heat treating which would mean $115 million USD. Dowa 100% on the list.
4) Assab International. This Swedish based steel company http://www.assab.se/ is a worldwide entity that gets involved in commercial heat treating as a service offered in conjunction with their steel sales. While impossible to determine the exact value of their heat treating they have such an enormous number of vacuum furnaces and fluid beds that they rank as one of the larger heat treaters around the world and in particular in the Asian market.
5) Jorkro Group (Indonesia). This is a company we know very little about however 2 or 3 individuals familiar with the heat treating market in Asia all felt very strongly that Jorkro without a doubt is one of the large








