NITRIDING NEWS

In order to meet increasing market demand, a global auto manufacturer is including the installation of a second automated nitriding cell to help expand production capacity of automotive parts. The capital equipment will allow the client to bring the production process in-house for greater control, flexibility, and enhanced effectiveness.

This is the client's third order from Nitrex and second nitriding cell installation in this phase. Nitrex will undertake almost all aspects of the cell for 24/7 lights-out manufacturing: furnaces, charge cars, loading/unloading and magazine tables, and auxiliary equipment (e.g., atmosphere neutralizer, water cooling stations, charge cooling station, etc.). All equipment will be connected to the Protherm 9800 automation platform for automatic handling and processing, which improves workflow efficiency, process reliability, furnace utilization, work order tracking, and real-time performance metrics.For this latest order, six continuous flow-through nitriding systems, furnace model NXHL-910512, were ordered to create the fully automated cell, which is responsible for automatic loading/unloading, processing, and transport. Delivery is planned for August 2022, and the cell should start operating in autumn.

"This chain of events helps increase the plant’s efficiency and productivity: the cell selects the furnaces in which it is possible to place consecutive batches or delivers the batches to several furnaces to process. Since charges are transferred to a cooling station outside the furnace, the furnace can continuously process batches without affecting the workflow and productivity," adds Nikola Dzepina, the executive of International Accounts. "This is a huge process simplification for the furnace operator and enables an automatic and autonomous operation of the area of the plant that controls surface treatment, allowing to increase productivity but also to maintain the repeatability of results."