332811: Metal Heat Treating

What this code covers

Census assigns 332811 to plants whose business is heat treating metal parts for the trade, meaning the parts belong to someone else. The definition names annealing, tempering, brazing, and cryogenic treatment. In practice it covers quench and temper, carburizing and nitriding, vacuum hardening, solution and age treatment of aluminum, stress relief of weldments, and furnace brazing.

For defense and aerospace, that means fasteners, gears, shafts, landing gear parts, engine hardware, aluminum fittings, and weldments that pass through your furnace between the machine shop and the finisher. A shop that heat treats only its own product uses that product's code instead.

What federal buyers typically ask for

Federal buyers rarely buy heat treating on its own. They buy a finished part, and the heat treat is a special process on the drawing. Most of your defense work comes from machine shops, forgers, and fastener makers holding those awards, so award history in 332710, 332111, and 332722 shows where the demand sits. Direct notices under this code tend to be depot process services, furnace equipment, or repair work.

When your process is on a government drawing, expect a named specification for the process and for pyrometry, furnace survey and calibration records, hardness or tensile reports by lot, and a process certification that travels with the parts. Primes and some program offices require a special process accreditation and keep an approved processor list. Parts often arrive with export controlled drawings, so a Joint Certification Program registration helps.

Direct set-asides are uncommon because direct notices are uncommon. Subcontract flow-down from small business awardees is where most heat treaters compete.