Thyssenkrupp will build an advanced forging line at its Homburg site in Germany’s Saarland region. The company will invest approximately $90 million in a new 12,000-square-meter facility to produce forged front axles for trucks. The centerpiece of the highly automated and digitized forging line will be a 16,000-ton forging press measuring 32.8 feet (10 meters) high and weighing 1,700 tons. According to thyssenkrupp, the press will produce 360,000 forged components per year and will not be restricted to one product. In addition to front axle systems, the line will be able to produce crankshafts and other forged parts as required.

Forgital, a producer of large forged and machined components for the aerospace and other industries, will be acquired by global investment firm The Carlyle Group. The transaction values Forgital at approximately $1.1 billion and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2019. Established in 1873 with headquarters in Vicenza, Italy, Forgital is a specialist in the manufacture of machine-finished forged and laminated rolled rings made from different materials, including steel, aluminum, titanium and nickel-based alloys. In addition to aerospace applications, Forgital also serves the oil-and-gas, construction, mining and power-generation industries. The company employs over 1,100 people across nine facilities in Italy, France and the United States and through its global salesforce.

Are we starting to see the signs of an “extinction-level event” as future vehicle innovation accelerates?

To stay competitive, forgers must continuously integrate advanced manufacturing technologies into their production. Long gone are the days when forging was simply a means of shaping metal.

SECO/WARWICK will supply a multipurpose sealed quench-chamber furnace to Kuznia Sulkowicie SA, a Polish manufacturer of matrix forgings, construction connectors and manual tools. The furnace is designed for heat treatment (such as gas carbonitriding and pure hardening) in a controlled endothermic atmosphere. The fully automated operation of the furnace is its unique advantage. Personnel are only required to load and unload the work after treatment. The cycle and product transfer is completely automated.

Israel’s Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd. announced an agreement with Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corp., to buy all the shares of Pratt &Whitney’s Carmel Forge for $58.5 million. Carmel Forge manufactures parts for aviation jet engines. As part of the deal, Carmel Forge has signed a long-term agreement, valued at $360 million over 10 years, for the production of forged metal-alloy components to be used in Pratt &Whitney’s new engine manufacturing projects.

Mettis Aerospace, Worcestershire, U.K., has been awarded a contract to supply steel alloy precision-forged components to Boeing’s first European factory in Sheffield, U.K. Boeing’s new facility will produce 7,000 actuation system components each month for the 737 and 777 passenger jets, which will be shipped for assembly in Boeing’s Portland, Ore., plant.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers struck Wyman-Gordon (W-G) in Houston, Texas, at the expiration of the then-current collective bargaining agreement in August.