GFI Metal Treating has come a long way in a short period of time.

The company was purchased in May 2000. The former entity was bankrupt and needed several updates and improvements, so GFI purchased the new and used equipment it needed and immediately started processing work for the agriculture industry. In just over 15 years, the company went from four to 20 full-time employees and is now also serving the construction and military markets.

Ownership worked hard to make GFI a one-stop shop for customers. The company’s facility in Rockford, Ill., houses all the services customers need, including cleaning capabilities. To be precise, GFI provides the following heat-treat services: normalizing, oil hardening, carburizing, carbonitriding, annealing, induction annealing/hardening and flame hardening. The company has a full laboratory, complete with microhardness testers, metallographs and load cell RC testers. GFI also performs shot peening, vibratory deburring and straightening.

As for equipment, GFI boasts batch integral-quench furnaces that can run baskets of 100 pounds up to 2,000 pounds. The company has temper furnaces to ensure a quick turnaround for customer parts, and its induction equipment can meet the diverse nature of induction hardening. After the heat-treat process is complete, GFI has the capability to blast/shot peen up to 40,000 pounds per hour, and it can vibratory deburr up to 500 pounds per hour. The company hand-cleans critical parts with either glass bead or metal shot, and it offers delivery service to all customers.

But what makes GFI unique is its paperwork and furnace controls. The company’s paperwork/order tracking system was created in-house and adheres to the strictest ISO/AS guidelines. This system led GFI to purchase new controls for its furnaces. All controllers have 150 recipes tested out with data to back up the company’s run formulas. After two years of in-house research, GFI changed its run formulas so that it can run, on average, an extra eight loads per day. This research also minimized non-conformances to only 2-3 per year. 

That’s not all that sets GFI apart from the competition. The ISO 9001:2008-certified company has a patented process that cuts in excess of two full extra operations, which has saved customers millions of dollars. The patented process also allows GFI to run three times as much product in one shift. GFI has also developed a new way to process agriculture crossbars for combines that increases the production rate, decreases warpage and creates a longer-lasting final product.

GFI Metal Treating is a company that was built by hard work, innovative technology and communication with customers. Moving forward, the company intends to grow by adding equipment and continuing to build solid relationships with current and new customers.

Visit www.gfimetaltreating.com for more information on GFI Metal Treating.