June 2018

76 77 ple, producing furnaces and providing after-sales customer service, some engineering services, project management, and sales for the North American market – the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.” “In 2002, we had a similar situation in China, where we also had existing customers,” Gabriel continues. “So, we opened a location there in 2004. That company has grown to roughly 300 people. As a corporation, the Ebner companies have about 1,000 people now. The facility in China is mostly manufacturing, and also supplies components for systems throughout the world. We do the same here in Ohio; we build certain key components that we ship around the world. The people in Austria mostly concentrate, now, in research and development, engineering, sales, and service. China is a manufacturing power- house and we do a little bit of everything.” In addition to its hydrogen annealing furnaces, which are only made by a handful of companies, Gabriel believes that what helps set Ebner Fur- naces apart from the competition is its dedication to research and development. “We put between six and eight percent of our annual budget into R&D so, by comparison, our research and devel- opment facility in Austria is quite large,” he notes. “We have process metallurgists working who understand the technological requirements of our prospective customers, which is invaluable because we can design a whole process around a customer’s requirements and make sure that he gets what he set out to get. EBNER FURNACES, INC. “The second thing is our customer service orga- nization.We don’t just look at a furnace system as a one-time event. The shortest part of the life of a furnace is really the design and build stage, but the rest of the life is operating the furnace, and we are right there with the customer with spare parts, with upgrades and modernizations and re- builds. So, we have a fairly large customer service organization that can handle every aspect of the life of the furnace –parts, repairs, onsite services, electronic troubleshooting, remote connections, and so forth.” While the company has mostly grown organi- cally over the years, Gabriel says that it has made some strategic acquisitions, as well. In 2012, it bought Gautschi Engineering, which concentrates on melting furnaces for the aluminum industry, and in 2016, it acquired 51 percent of an Austri- an firm called HPI High Performance Industries. “They also play in the aluminum industry, mostly, with aluminum casting machines, and ultrasonic testing of aluminum billets, and also some mag- nesium melting and casting equipment,” he says. “So, we have made some small and complemen- tary acquisitions.” Since the end of the Great Recession, the com- pany has prospered to the point where it has expanded its factory in China, and is currently considering expanding its Ohio factory, as well. “We’ve made the necessary infrastructure ad- justments and are continuing to do that,” Gabriel states. “We are looking at the next innovation to,