Ipsen 75 years
Since I have worked mainly with vacuum all my life (plasma nitriding, vacuum furnaces, LPC, PVD), multi-purpose heat treatment was on the edge of my interest. Only after the acquisition of the Heat Praha group by the Bodycote company the heat treatment plants working with Ipsen (Prague, Modřice) and Aichelin (Plzen) furnaces join us.
And so there was nothing left but to familiarize myself more closely with this type of technology. And since at that time vacuum profitability was higher than 30% and SQ was zero, I then sacrificed many years to prove that even this type of technology can be highly profitable. In the final, we reached the level of 21 to 22%, which I consider a very good result.
Ipsen furnaces contributed to this result, despite the fact that these furnaces were often several decades old. They were all bought and installed under deep socialism. Only the Greenfield Prague project brought new Ipsen furnaces, but that was already the result of the work of Pavel Ryvola.
What to say about them? Even when I was studying in secondary school in Brno, a classmate had an old Tatra 57A. He was extremely proud of it, and his greatest asset was that he drove this beautiful, vintage car to plow his grandfather’s fields.
And I see furnaces from the Ipsen company in a similar way. Good old bits, almost indestructible, producing heat treatment in large and small volumes, flexible, reliable, almost perfect. And the fact that their design was created many, many years ago does not change the fact that this concept has survived until today.
When I started reading the history, I just realized how little we actually know about this company. Here everyone lives in the fact that Ipsen = Kleve. But the company was founded in the USA, already in 1940, but with a completely different focus. Mr. Harold Norregaard Ipsen was involved in the production of decorative ceramics, and it was only when his pottery kiln failed that he began to engage in his own construction. And so, in 1948, the company was registered as a company producing furnaces for the heat treatment of metals. By 1953 it already 6 plants in the United States, and as interest grew, a new operation in Germany, Ipsen Industries GmbH, was established in 1957. A beautiful and long history, leading to Ipsen celebrating 75 years this year.
I already have the invitation on my desk, so I’m really looking forward to it…
April 26, 2023
Jiří Stanislav
