Everything Matters in Reaching ASM HTS Vision 2020 Goals
Everything Matters in Reaching ASM HTS’s Vision 2020 Goals
by Joseph A. Powell, President
Akron Steel Treating Company + AST Consulting
In 1999, ASM’s Heat Treating Society set forth a view of what the ideal future for the heat treating industry would be by the year 2020. Among the goals is to “Achieve zero distortion and maximum uniformity in heat treated parts.”
Since heat treating is a crosscutting technology, it affects, and is affected by, many aspects of lean part design and manufacture. All the parties in the lean manufacturing value chain, including the heat treater, must realize that “everything matters,” then collaborate and innovate together.
The author will review the 1999 ideals set forth in Vision 2020 and how far we have come as of 2017. The author combines his dual perspectives doing traditional commercial heat treating for over 35 years for over 1,200 different customers, as well as his work with many colleagues commercializing non-traditional heat treating methods and equipment since 1997.