Automotive Recall Recovery: Leveraging a Strategic Heat Treat Partnership to Bounce Back 

For automotive manufacturers, the stakes are high for precision when producing safety-critical components. When something goes wrong, the ripple effects can be massive: from supply chain interruptions to costly recalls and, worst of all, putting consumers at risk.

That’s exactly what happened to one Tier 1 automotive supplier.

A heat treating issue on a safety-critical component triggered a global recall and revealed a systemic problem: the widely accepted industry standard wasn’t precise enough to prevent issues. So, in search of a way to prevent this from happening again, they partnered with Paulo to outline a new heat treating recipe for their components and create a more reliable supply chain that maximizes precision and traceability. 

From Exposure to Excellence

The company is one of the largest Tier 1 suppliers in the automotive industry, producing parts for nearly every major OEM. When a heat treatment issue triggered a major recall, it revealed a critical gap: they had no formal heat treating specification of their own—no clear framework for supplier expectations beyond general industry standards.

Rather than patch the problem, they set out to solve it at the source. Their executive team committed to building a new, global heat treating standard—one that would prevent future quality issues and set a new bar for control, traceability, and accountability.

To get there, they needed a true partner—someone with the systems, expertise, and transparency to help define what excellence should look like. That’s when they came to Paulo.

No Need to Reinvent the Wheel – Innovation Was Already in Motion

Rather than start from scratch, the Tier 1 supplier chose to learn from heat treaters who were already solving the challenges they were facing. Based on reputation for precision with automotive components, Paulo was a natural prospect to consider. 

What started as a single visit to our St. Louis facility led to several more explorations. Over time, teams from across the supplier’s organization spent time with our metallurgists, engineers, operators, and customer service staff, getting a firsthand look at how we manage continuous belt processing, quality control, and data traceability.

What they found was a robust system built to anticipate the kinds of issues that often lead to quality escapes. From automated part tracking to real-time alarms and data logging, our approach showed how process control and transparency could go hand in hand.

Those visits laid the groundwork for something bigger: using existing best practices to help shape a new, more rigorous industry standard.

Setting a New Standard for Heat Treating

Over the course of several weeks, our metallurgy team worked closely with the supplier’s team to reverse-engineer the heat treating process—down to every control point, alarm safeguard, and sampling procedure.

We developed a process that is so reliable, that they adopted it directly into their new global heat treating specification.

The spec includes:

• Automated load identification via barcode scanning
• Real-time alarms and quarantine protocols for any out-of-spec process
• Standardized sampling plans for belt furnace runs (beginning, middle, and end)
• Traceability of every load through Paulo’s PBS and PICS systems
• Metallurgist-verified test results
• Recipe control safeguards ensuring only validated cycles are used

Our continuous belt furnace line became the visual reference for what ideal automation and process control should look like. The supplier turned that model into a scoring system that other heat treaters would be measured against—green for automated controls, yellow for partial manual verification, and red for processes lacking safeguards.

The Impact

Before this collaboration, Paulo was processing a relatively small volume of parts for the supplier’s customers. After implementing the new specification, that volume increased significantly—surpassing $1 million annually in heat treating services.

But more importantly, this partnership enabled the supplier to:

• Create a safer, more traceable production process
• Empower their heat treating vendors with clearer expectations
• Reduce the risk of recalls by ensuring critical parts are always in spec

Their newly established audit team continues to use our process as the gold standard in evaluating other heat treaters.

The Bigger Picture: Responsible Production Through Datagineering

This story is more than a one-time success—it’s a blueprint for how manufacturers can push beyond industry standards to develop a more reliable supplier network and more reliable parts. 

It demonstrates the importance of robust process control, data transparency, and deep technical collaboration. By leveraging our datagineering approach, this Tier 1 supplier turned a vulnerability into a strength—and helped raise the bar for thermal processing across the entire automotive industry.

With decades of metallurgical expertise and unparalleled heat treating data, we’re able to quickly help manufacturers across all industries get the results they expect and reduce risk in their supply chain with precise heat treating. If you have concerns about your current process or parts, get in touch with one of our heat treating experts today.