These include major furnace manufacturing companies that provide furnaces nationally as well as worldwide. Other furnace makers provide only regionally and others cater to local customers only.
Several companies manufacture furnaces for others and provide heat-treating services to customers.
Since the major re-heat furnaces are owned by the steel makers and are installed on their premises, the growth in this sector is expected to be small. Major impact will be in repair and maintenance. Users are demanding improvements in the area of solution heat treating, which encompasses a large number of heat treating processes. The output of the steel production in 1998 was lower in the U.S. due to substantially increased import. But the prognosis is for the business to stabilize and grow again within the next two years.