New oven for outsize components keeps manufacturing work in UK
1 min read
A new state-of-the-art machine designed for heat treating outsized parts for specialist firms is helping to keep such contracts in the UK as opposed to being offshored to Europe, according to the Dudley-based manufacturer Alloy Heat Treatment (AHT).
The company, which specialises in heat treating components for the aerospace and automotive industry, says it Is now the only UK-based firm with the professional expertise and product to help clients heat up pieces that fit into the basket size of 2630mm x 2400mm x 2300mm. Its new Oven 25 will also free up solution capacity on AHT's rapid quench line.
The company's Ian Perk said: "AHT made a strategic decision to invest in a large top loading oven which would free up capacity on our fully automated, rapid quench, drop bottom line. Due to an enquiry from Jennings Foundry at the time of specifying the oven it was constructed to carry out high and low temperature treatments.We are in the process of getting the oven NADCAP approved which will allow us to take on larger components for the aircraft industry."
Alan Harmer, managing director of Dorset-based customer WRES, which specialises in welding and fabrication in aluminium, stainless and mild steel for the marine, food, defence, architecture and petro-chemical industries, said AHT was the only UK firm it had discovered to have the Oven 25 machine for its specific use. "They gave us a one-week turnaround time to get the parts over to them and heated in their high-temperature oven. If we didn't have this option from Alloy Heat Treatment, we would have had to send it to Europe, which would be a longer turnaround time and not very practical for us," he continued.
