Furnaces International Issue
September 2025

Welcome to the September issue of Furnaces International.

This issue will receive extra distribution at next month’s Heat Treat show in Detroit, USA, at which my colleagues Esme Horn and Belle Law will be in attendance. They look forward to meeting you!

It isn’t irrational to worry about the increased use of AI and the impact it could have on jobs. We’ve all heard or seen the memes describing how AI will leave a trail of unemployment in its wake.

As a journalist, I am deemed most at risk, with a large language model able to write more quickly and accurately than any fallible human. But trying to stifle innovation can hamper progress. For how many years were human lift operators required in US cities even after automatic elevators became mainstream?

I was reminded of this at a recent manufacturing conference in India where a presenter said that AI will not replace jobs but will make jobs more interesting. As well as making industrial processes more efficient and safer, it will enable humans to embrace varied roles rather than repetitive ones.

An article in this issue by Watlow highlights how AI can be used in electric furnaces. It describes how a plant-wide data backbone - complete with humans in the loop - can improve decision making. Automation may be disruptive but it is a pathway to higher productivity for facilities and humans alike.

And by the way, just in case you were wondering, this was written by me and not an AI bot!