Abstract
Insufficient and missing information can lead to avoidable costs in heat treatment, arising both from failures and from the time-consuming process of acquiring information. The Quality Assurance in Heat Treatment research group of the Association for Heat Treatment and Materials Technology aims to raise awareness among all heat treatment contractors about the importance of exchanging necessary information. This goal will be achieved by first documenting the essential information and then explaining why information exchange is crucial. Three examples are provided to demonstrate the impact of information on product outcomes. To disseminate these explanations to the general public, a concept and the initial implementation of a knowledge system are introduced.
