Where will heat treatment be in five years’ time?

A report on the Global Heat Treating Market 2012-2016 by TechNavio reveals that the need to develop high quality, cost effective products is driving the Global Heat Treating Market to grow over 7%. Invensys Eurotherm has offered six predictions for heat treatment over the next five years:

1. Firstly, they predict that India, China and Singapore will continue to grow. The quality of their parts will be a key driver for greater penetration of heat treated, high value engineering products.
2. Eurotherm has forecast that there will be a slow drift of aerospace manufacturing away from the traditional strongholds such as the US and UK.
3. Next, the company believes that the de-skilling process in manufacturing will continue globally with companies relying more and more on automation and ‘expert’ systems for process control.
4. With an ever expanding source of materials and technology, the use of new materials not requiring heat treatment and low distortion processes are expected to continue to grow.
5. Penultimately, smaller and lighter components are predicted to lead to smaller batch sizes and an increased requirement for smaller, energy efficient furnaces and controls.
6. Lastly, Invensys Eurotherm forecast an increase in the use of energy efficient heating and furnace technologies combined with improved control systems.

Kevin Robinson commented: “There was a slowdown in innovation in heat treatment processing during the last recession as volumes dropped and the focus shifted to immediate costs and cashflow, but in recent years with new model introductions, the industry is increasingly looking to the future.”