Business View Magazine | August 2019

69 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2019 called bright annealing, which incorporates a hydrogen atmosphere to heat-treat metal; making it softer, more flexible, and shinier. The company operates one U.S. facility in Wadsworth, Ohio (100 employees), with corporate headquarters in Austria (750 employees), and a second large facility near Shanghai, China (250 employees). Herbert Gabriel, General Manager and VP of Sales for the U.S. division of Ebner Furnaces reports on some notable recent achievements for the company: “We’ve done a couple very large projects for our customers in the last year. We’ve been a big part of the new rolling mill facility that Nucor is putting into operation in Hickman, Arkansas, not far from their existing plant. We supplied, installed, and commissioned 24 annealing bases there. It was a huge construction site – they’re now getting the rolling mill up and running and some product is already produced through our equipment. But they’re still in the ramp-up phase.” Ebner Furnaces received the order from Nucor (already a valuable customer) in April 2017 and finished its part of the project this past January. Designing, building, installing, and commissioning 24 annealing bases in that time frame is exceptional and much appreciated by the client. Ebner is also doing a large project at Arconic in Davenport for aluminum plate, used in aircraft wing sections, among other critical products. Two furnaces are being implemented there: the first to heat-treat the plate and the second for a metallurgical aging process. North of the border, Ebner is also undertaking projects at steel companies in Ontario, Canada, including a large one – 12 furnaces – at Stelco in Hamilton. Commissioning of that will be done in August. By that time, the company will also be starting installation of four annealing furnaces at Dofasco in Hamilton, and in the fall of 2019, it’ll be doing a project in Milton, Ontario at Karmax Heavy Stamping, a division of Magna International. This will be the second Ebner furnace for Karmax; the last one was installed about two years ago. Ebner is involved in a lot of diverse industries. According to Gabriel, “It’s difficult for the average person to go a day without touching something EBNER FURNACES , INC .