Heat Treat Education

Special Report: Doug Glenn, Publisher

This is the third and final special report from the triennial mega-meeting hosted by the Metal Treating Institute (MTI) and the Industrial Heating Equipment Association (IHEA) and the pressing question that needs to be answered is: “Where do manufacturers with in-house heat treat departments find good training and troubleshooting resources?”

This three-day event with over 91 heat treat industry supplier companies represented and approximately 200 attendees addresses the “brain drain” topic we reported on in Monday’s special report (click here to read Monday’s post).

Both organizations are offering training courses, both live and web-based, for manufacturers with in-house heat treat. Some of the specific courses are mentioned below. In addition to offering training, both organizations also offer memberships to these same companies.

For membership information, click on the appropriate links below:

• For the Metal Treating Institute, click here.
• For the Industrial Heating Equipment Association, click here.

 

For training, consider the following:

IHEA Training Opportunities

If you’re looking for comprehensive, face-to-face combustion training, consider attending IHEA’s Combustion Seminar. The next combustion seminar is scheduled for early October and a link to register will be up on the website (www.ihea.org) in the near future. You can also purchase a video recording of a recent Combustion Seminar by clicking here. The cost is $960 (less for IHEA members). The course includes the following (plus more):

• chemistry and efficiency of combustion
• types of industrial burners available and how they are applied for efficient operation
• supply and control of the fuel and air for these systems including piping design and valve selection
• flame safety requirements of combustion systems
• process and ratio controls with exposure to micro-processor equipment
• furnace pressure controls for operation and efficiency improvements
• preheated combustion air and furnace recuperators
• NOX and other emissions: what causes them and how to minimize them
• infrared process heating overview and applications

IHEA also offers an Induction Webinar and a Safety Webinar for training your employees how to safely operate and work around heat treating equipment. The next iteration of these face-to-face seminars are scheduled for early October. Check back to IHEA’s website for exact details.

IHEA also offers a very comprehensive online training course which covers many of the fundamentals of heat treating. More information at https://www.ihea.org/events/event_list.asp.

MTI Training Opportunities

The MTI offers equally good training in its Online Academy (click here for more information). The course offering is broad and very professionally presented. The Online Academy comes at a very affordable price of $1,400-$2,800 per year for up to 10 “seats”.

The Academy for Heat Treaters has both technical and managerial content. With over 175 hours of training, there is a wide array of heat treat topics to help management and line personnel understand the technical aspects of heat treating as well as “think” like a heat treater.

Since its inception, the MTI Academy has held over 25,000 classes all across the world. It satisfies minimum training requirements for Nadcap, ISO, and most other certification bodies.

Within the Academy, students can earn four different certificates:

• Qualified Furnace Operator Program (QFO)
• Heat Treat Technical Specialist (HTTS)
• Heat Treat Specialist Certificate (HTS)
• Heat Treat Management Specialist Certificate (HTMS)

Courses can be purchased individually or through the Academy Annual Corporate Subscription Program which provides unlimited use of all 175+ hours of training for a heat treat plant.

There’s More

The above listing of courses is not all that can be said about the offering from either organization. More can be found at each organization’s website or by contacting me directly with any questions. Click here to send me an email.

With the need for training being real, both of these organizations have well-developed educational and training programs that are worth pursuing.

 

See the first two Special Reports by Heat Treat Today publisher Doug Glenn here:

“One Fix for Heat Treat Brain Drain”, Monday 4/23/18

“Special Report: MTI & IHEA Combined Meeting Photo Gallery”, Tuesday 4/24/18