# Metal Treating Institute and commercial heat treating: standards and ERP realities > Source: https://netray.co/manufacturing/metal-treating-institute-heat-treating > Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems. > Section: Manufacturing Hubs ## Short answer The Metal Treating Institute (MTI) is a US trade association for commercial heat treating companies, which treat metal parts owned by other manufacturers. Heat treaters work to customer specs under strict furnace, temperature uniformity and certification rules, so their systems are built around loads, furnace records and certificates. ## Kind association ## Country United States ## Area Commercial heat treating ## Intro The Metal Treating Institute (MTI) is a US trade association for commercial heat treating companies, which treat metal parts owned by other manufacturers. Heat treaters work to customer specs under strict furnace, temperature uniformity and certification rules, so their systems are built around loads, furnace records and certificates. ## Industries ### Through hardening, quench and temper **Detail:** Steel parts such as shafts, gears, tooling and fasteners hardened in batch or continuous furnaces and tempered to a hardness range. ### Case hardening and carburizing **Detail:** Gears, bearings and transmission parts carburized or carbonitrided to a case depth, with hardness and microstructure checks. ### Vacuum heat treating and brazing **Detail:** Tool steels, stainless and aerospace alloys processed in vacuum furnaces where cleanliness and distortion control matter. ### Aluminum and nonferrous treating **Detail:** Solution treatment and aging of aluminum and other alloys to temper conditions used in aerospace and general machinery. ### Nitriding and surface treatments **Detail:** Gas and plasma nitriding for wear and fatigue resistance on tooling, molds and engine or drivetrain components. ## Ecosystem ### Metal Treating Institute (MTI) **Type:** association **Note:** Trade association for commercial heat treaters in the United States, offering industry training, events and shared safety and technical resources. ### ASM International **Type:** association **Note:** Materials society that publishes the ASM Handbook, including the volumes on heat treating, and runs the ASM Heat Treating Society. ### Heat Treat Show **Type:** trade show **Note:** ASM Heat Treating Society's exposition for the heat treating industry. ### Performance Review Institute (PRI) Nadcap **Type:** standard body **Note:** Nadcap includes a heat treating audit program used by aerospace primes to approve heat treaters. ### SAE International AMS 2750 **Type:** standard body **Note:** Pyrometry specification covering furnace classes, system accuracy tests and temperature uniformity surveys for aerospace heat treatment. ### AIAG CQI-9 **Type:** standard body **Note:** Automotive Industry Action Group's Heat Treat System Assessment used by automotive customers. ### Industrial Heating Equipment Association (IHEA) **Type:** association **Note:** Trade association for manufacturers of industrial heating equipment, relevant to furnace safety and equipment. ## Requirements - Nadcap heat treating accreditation for aerospace customers - AMS 2750 pyrometry: thermocouple calibration, system accuracy tests, temperature uniformity surveys - AMS 2759 heat treatment of steel parts and related AMS process specs - AIAG CQI-9 for automotive heat treat systems - IATF 16949, AS9100 and ISO 9001 quality systems - NFPA 86 furnace safety - Customer certificates with hardness, case depth and load records ## Sections ### What commercial heat treaters do for customers **Body:** A commercial heat treater receives parts from machine shops, forges and OEMs, loads them into furnaces, runs a recipe and ships them back with a certificate. Each job comes with a customer spec that states hardness, case depth, temper, straightness or atmosphere, and each furnace has qualification data that says which classes of work it may run. Orders may be small lots of mixed part numbers or large repeat runs. Both rely on load building that fits furnace capacity and recipe compatibility, which is a scheduling problem as much as a metallurgical one. ### Quoting and estimating realities **Body:** Heat treat pricing is usually by weight, piece or load, with add-ons for straightening, testing, special atmospheres, expedite and certification. Estimators need to know recipe time, furnace type, fixturing and quench method, and which jobs can share a load. Common pricing misses are cycles that run longer than assumed, fixture cost and rework from hardness failures. Capturing actual cycle time per recipe and furnace gives a far better basis for quoting than a standing price list. **Bullets:** - Price by weight, piece or load with a minimum charge - List testing, straightening and certification as separate lines - Track actual cycle time by recipe and furnace ### ERP and systems in heat treat shops **Body:** Many heat treaters run industry specific software for loads, furnace charts and certificates, sometimes alongside accounting packages such as QuickBooks, Epicor or similar. General job shop ERPs can work, but they are built for jobs with bills of materials, not for customer-owned parts moving through shared loads. The data that matters most is the link from a customer lot to a furnace load, the recipe, the control and recording thermocouple charts and the test results. Weak links here are where certificate preparation turns into hours of manual copying. ### Compliance and data handling **Body:** Under AMS 2750 and Nadcap, furnace and instrument records are audited, including calibration schedules, uniformity surveys and test intervals. Under CQI-9, process tables and monitoring plans are part of the assessment. These records need retention, revision control and clear ownership. Aerospace and defense work may involve controlled technical data. Keeping documents and chart data on infrastructure the shop controls, and keeping AI tools read-only, fits the way these audits already expect records to be handled. ### Where private AI helps and where it does not **Body:** Helpful tasks include asking which loads used a given furnace and recipe, finding calibration or survey due dates, drafting certificate content from load and hardness data for review, and searching past nonconformances and customer spec revisions in plain language. AI should not set furnace recipes, change controller setpoints or release loads. Process control and metallurgical judgment stay with qualified people and the furnace control systems. If the shop already has good heat treat software, a vendor feature may be enough. ## Faq ### What is the Metal Treating Institute? **Answer:** MTI is a US trade association for commercial heat treating companies. It supports its members with events, training and technical and safety resources focused on the commercial heat treating business. ### What is AMS 2750? **Answer:** AMS 2750 is the SAE aerospace pyrometry specification. It defines furnace classes and instrument types, and requires thermocouple calibration, system accuracy tests and temperature uniformity surveys on a set schedule for aerospace heat treatment. ### What is CQI-9? **Answer:** CQI-9 is the AIAG Heat Treat System Assessment used in the automotive supply chain. It covers process tables, pyrometry, quality and monitoring requirements for heat treat processes and is used by customers to assess suppliers. ### Which ERP works for a heat treat shop? **Answer:** Either industry specific heat treat software or a general job shop ERP with added load and certificate handling. The test is whether customer lots, furnace loads, recipes and chart records are linked so certificates are not rebuilt by hand. ## Search terms Metal Treating Institute, MTI heat treating, heat treating shop software, nadcap for heat treatment, nadcap heat treating, AMS 2750 pyrometry requirements, CQI-9 heat treat assessment --- Talk to an engineer: https://netray.co/contact?intent=erp_ai | Machine catalog: https://netray.co/agent/catalog.json