Dr. H. Stumpp, President of LOI Italimpianti; redaktion@stahleisen.de

The business of industrial furnaces is to a large degree of its volume serving the metals producing industry and the automotive and machine building industry. Caused by the enormous changes in these global industries which have taken place during the past years and which are still going on, also the furnace business was and still is significantly influenced. In the foreseeable future the market of furnaces for the steel will not reach its pre-crisis levels. Currently a strong growth of the capital expenditures of the automotive and machine building industry in partsof Europe as well as in China are observed. Along with the above described changes in the volume and regional focus of the markets remarkable new demands for heat treatment applications have occurred. Predominantly this is to be assigned to the globally increasing complexity of energy supply and to the transition of China into an infrastructural highly developed country with the need of more advanced materials for the sectors transportation and construction as well as for energy supply. These outstanding demands for advanced materials with a key role of heat treatment in the production processes are: quenched and tempered steel plates; quenched and tempered steel pipes; electrical steel; high-strength automotive sheet; railway wheel sets; gear parts for wind mill power generators. In summary of all what is described above the companies in the furnace industry have simultaneously to cope with several challenges and ill have to think in global setups. New suppliers from developing countries will try to penetrate in the traditional markets.