Is Heat Treatment for Metal a Special Process?

[blue moon]

Dear Mr

we do a heat treatment for metal to increase the hardness of metal

we do it under the good condition


after finish the process we mesure the hardness of metal


is this a special process or not ?
7.5.3

 

[Kales Veggie]

Yes, it is.

(plating and coating are also special processes)

 

[Big Jim]

Yes, heat treating is a special process. Special processes are under 7.5.2 (not 7.5.3 which is traceability).

You need to validate the process, which it sounds like you may be doing. If you are following a specification (recipe, such as an ANSI or MIL Specification), monitoring the process (oven temps and time) and checking what you can (hardness test) that looks like validation to me. You should be retaining the results of monitoring (oven log and test results) as evidence of validation.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

is this a special process or not ?

The answer is: It depends. Is the heat treatment done solely for hardening the part? Is the hardening of the metal localized to a specific area of the part? Can you effectively measure the hardness of the area without inducing unacceptable denting onto the part?

If you can answer these 3 questions as "yes", then, this is not a process that needs to be validated since you can effectively "inspect" the characteristics at the end of the process, against the requirements.

 

[Randy]

It's not a special process if your buisness is the heat treating of metal.

And as has already been said, it depends.

By the way, what does heat treating of metal have to do with shrimp, milk, cheese and other things?

 

[AndyN]

It's not a special process if your buisness is the heat treating of metal.

And as has already been said, it depends.

By the way, what does heat treating of metal have to do with shrimp, milk, cheese and other things?

and garage doors.........

 

[charanjit singh]

Sydney and Randy have quite rightly mentioned conditions under which the heat treatment may not be called a special process. However if you have a number of identical parts in the heat treatment batch and are accepting the batch by checking only a sample for hardness, then it would be special process. You would need to specifiy and maintain the process parameters - Temp range and time of exposure - besides the hardness check of the sample.

 

[Big Jim]

The answer is: It depends. Is the heat treatment done solely for hardening the part? Is the hardening of the metal localized to a specific area of the part? Can you effectively measure the hardness of the area without inducing unacceptable denting onto the part?

If you can answer these 3 questions as "yes", then, this is not a process that needs to be validated since you can effectively "inspect" the characteristics at the end of the process, against the requirements.

Good point. You are right, it depends.

Something to remember is that heat treat can be a very complex subject. What happens inside the metal really cannot be fully analized short of sawing the part for a look inside to see the molucular changes and grain structure changes.

If you are depending on such internal changes, something that you cannot tell from any external check, then it is a special process and you need to show how you are validating it.

 

[blue moon]

i think it is not special process because we have a device to measure the Hardness of metal

 

[blue moon]

we also manfacturing of die

where we produce one upon the requirement of customer then we send it to the customer for trial

and if he accept then it will be approved

is this indicate for any special process


where we can't validate the die untill the customer received it and try