A Baker’s 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
- Kestrel Company, an investment corporation founded by Shelby Ray, has purchased the remaining assets of Eagle Steel Products from Shirley Ohta, who founded Eagle in 1982. The new ownership, led by Ray, expects to maintain its woman- and minority-owned business status. Eagle operates a steel and metal products warehousing and distribution facility in Louisville, Kentucky.Kestrel Company will be doing business as Eagle Steel & Metal Products.
- Jerram Dawes has recently joined Phoenix Temperature Measurement (PhoenixTM) as Sales Manager, bringing 20 years experience of working for a well-known temperature profiling equipment supplier.
- Kimberly A. Fields recently joined Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (ATI) as Executive Vice President with full P&L responsibility for the Flat-Rolled Products Group, succeeding Robert S. Wetherbee, who held this role until becoming ATI’s President and CEO. Ms. Fields brings 20 years of global experience with a focus on growth and operational excellence.
- After almost 9 months away from the company, Ed Valykeo has recently returned to Pelican Wire as the company’s thermocouple specialist. With almost four decades of experience in the wire manufacturing space, Ed is recognized as an industry expert within the thermocouple wire manufacturing world. In his career, Ed has been an active member of ASTM for over twenty-five years and spent almost two decades in various technical positions at Hoskins Manufacturing, an industry pioneer.
- American Posts LLC has acquired Ohio-Kentucky Steel, which provides slitting of steel and aluminum. American Posts, LLC was established in March 2005 and is the last manufacturer of steel u-posts in the United States.
- Brelie Gear Co, Inc. has announced plans to build a new 36,800 sq. ft. facility on a recently purchased 4.3-acre site in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Brelie will be moving from their current plant in Milwaukee to the new, larger plant. The new larger space will continue to run as a full-service gear manufacturing facility that houses the latest in equipment technology and automation.
- Sage Metals Private Ltd., a portfolio company of Delos Capital and a manufacturer of specialty metal products, has acquired Jayco Manufacturing. Based in Grand Prairie, Texas, Jayco is involved in the assembly, integration, and production of precision custom metal-formed components for a variety of industrial and consumer end markets.
Equipment Chatter
- A 2-zone indirect gas-fired heavy duty walk-in furnace was recently shipped to a global manufacturer in the composite industry. Wisconsin Oven Corporation announced that this project passed the stringent temperature uniformity requirements to meet BAC 5621 Class 1 Furnaces and Instrumentation Type D specifications.
- A vacuum purge semi-continuous Active Only® CAB furnace was recently commissioned by SECO/WARWICK for a North American automotive aftermarket manufacturer.
- Nucor Steel Marion, Inc., based in Marion, Ohio, granted SMS group the Final Acceptance Certificate (FAC) of the supplied walking beam furnace shortly after successful commissioning. The NOx content of this furnace is close to 25 parts per million. The furnace is designed according to innovative pre-fabrication methods and features proprietary SMS ZEROFlame burners.
- Five Blue M Standard mechanical convection ovens were recently shipped to a global manufacturer of automotive parts by Thermal Product Solutions.
Kudos Chatter
- The Powder Coating Institute (PCI) recently introduced the third video in the Powder Coating, A Better Kind of Paint consumer video series. Powder Coating: A Stronger Kind of Paint rounds out the “Stronger, Greener, Better” portion of the series. PCI also introduced a PCI Certification Program promotional video, which features three PCI certified companies sharing the benefits of certification and their experience with the process.
- The HPC4Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) Program recently awarded nearly $3.8 million for thirteen projects designed to stimulate the use of high-performance supercomputing in U.S. manufacturing. These projects will address key challenges in U.S. manufacturing proposed in partnership with companies and improve energy efficiency across the manufacturing industry through applied research and development of energy technologies. Each of the thirteen newly selected projects will receive up to $300,000 to support work performed by the national lab partners and allow the partners to use HPC compute cycles. Awardees include: (1) Arconic Inc. will partner with ORNL to model rolling processes to observe the evolution of porosity in a project titled “Computational Modeling of Industrial Rolling Processes Incorporating Microstructure Evolution to Minimize Rework Energy Losses”. (2) United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) will partner with ORNL to understand microstructure evolution during heat treatment of additively manufactured parts in a project titled “Predictive Tools for Customizing Heat Treatment of Additively Manufactured Aerospace Components”. (3) Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium (SMSVC) and ArcelorMittal USA will partner with ANL to improve the efficiency of the reheat furnace process in steel manufacturing in a project titled “Application of High-Performance Computing (HPC) to Optimize Reheat Furnace Efficiency in Steel Manufacturing”.
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.
