ECM USA Director of Sales, Bill Gornicki, recently announced the purchase of a NANO system for deployment into the North American aerospace manufacturing market. The NANO flexibility provides a variety of processes including LPC (Low Pressure Carburizing), hardening, brazing and annealing. ECM’s advanced automation capabilities also integrate the NANO with cryogenics, tempering and pre-washing.

As more aerospace manufacturers migrate to streamlined manufacturing techniques, the value rises for predictive production with defined takt time. This system is equipped with 3 treatment cells (upgradable to 6) for multi-process operation, all within the same vacuum chamber. The multi-process zones share a common high pressure gas quenching chamber rated up to 20 bar absolute pressure. The consistency of automation and unmanned operation integrate hybrid pre-cleaning capabilities. As per aerospace requirements, all system controls are designed and manufactured to UL requirements.

This heat treater chose the NANO platform for its unique capability to maintain, via small batch processing, facility takt time and streamlined process workflow. Eliminating the need for large workload queuing before and after heat treat or under-utilization of larger equipment, this reduces their WIP and increases production velocity. The desire to bring carburizing in-house while reducing their carbon footprint is also a prime reason to move to LPC/HPGQ and away from the traditional atmosphere carburizing process. This system includes functions such as: preventive maintenance planning, remote system status access and facility information systems integration. Along with complete workload process history traceability, the system is capable to provide alloy tracking to help accurately gauge heat treat fixture life with cycle awareness. Both alloy and CFC fixtures will be used in this installation.

It remains clear that ECM’s commitment to customer satisfaction and application solutions drives hard across various heat treat markets and well into 2022. Decades of experience continue to be a driving force behind the NANO excellence.