Blog
AMS 2750, Nadcap, and the software in between
What the standard actually requires of a system, what an auditor walks through, and why heat treat breaks an ERP that was designed for machining. Written by people who build this for a shop that gets audited.
A thermocouple has two clocks, and most software watches only one
A thermocouple can be comfortably inside its calibration date and still not legal to use, because it has run out of uses. Any system that checks the date and not the count will pass it. What tracking thermocouples actually requires.
What actually belongs on a heat-treat certificate of conformance
A cert is not a form to fill in — it is the visible end of a chain that has to reconstruct backwards to a thermocouple. Every line on it is either a real link to a record or a retyped claim that agrees with nothing. How to tell which kind you are shipping.
The spreadsheet isn't wrong. It's unanswerable.
A heat-treat compliance spreadsheet holds up right until an auditor asks a question its shape cannot answer — and there are four of them. The problem is never a bad formula. It's that the workbook can't reconstruct a past state, can't prove a result wasn't typed, and can't stop anything.
Load-centric vs order-centric: one picture of the difference
The schedule a heat-treat shop actually runs is a list of loads, not orders — one load carries parts from several customers, and one order line passes through several loads. A diagram of the many-to-many that order-centric software cannot draw.
SAT and TUS: what each one proves, and why one does not cover the other
A system accuracy test and a temperature uniformity survey answer different questions. Passing both is not redundancy — and a furnace can be current on one while the other is what stops your load.
What a Nadcap heat-treat audit actually walks through
An auditor does not read your dashboard. They pick a job and follow it backwards to the thermocouple. Here is the path they take, and the point at which most shops start reaching for a spreadsheet.
What AMS 2750 actually requires of your software
The standard governs furnaces and instruments, not applications — but four of its requirements decide whether a system can support compliance or quietly undermines it. A practical guide to evaluating heat-treat software against the spec.
Why heat treat breaks a generic ERP
Every ERP models an order moving through operations. Heat treat runs charges, and a charge is assembled across customers. That single mismatch is why the real schedule ends up on a whiteboard.
If you run Visual Shop or Bluestreak, you now have a deadline
Steelhead has acquired both and published the date each will be retired. What that means for your pyrometry records, and the questions worth asking while you still have leverage.