August 2020 Volume 2

PRESIDENT'S NOTE

President's Note

The Election Our FIA Lobby Firm has once again hit it out of the park with an excellent analysis of the upcoming election. We asked for an article analyzing likely future legislative outcomes depending on which party takes the White House, Senate, and House, and they have delivered in a big way. The firm addresses potential tax changes, Buy American legislation, trade, minimum wage, state and local government investment, infrastructure, and finally, costs, caveats, and consequences of various election results.Whatever the outcome, there has never been a more important time to get the FIA Lobby Day (Feb. 3-4) on your calendar. Reshoring The virus lockdown and supply-chain interruption has increased reshoring inquiries among the membership and within FIA’s RFQ system. FIA offered its membership a “Reshoring Now!” webinar (June 11), with more than 100 members participating. In preparation, I had a chance to get reacquainted with our reshoring presenter, andmy old friend, HarryMoser, founder of the Reshoring Initiative. Harry is an evangelist for American-made manufactured products. Harry asked me pointedly what our industry has done to help ourselves with automation, lean, and other productivity tools commonly found overseas. Having spent time in many types of manufacturing plants, I explained to Harry that job shops are generally challenged to employ automation across thousands of customer part numbers and lower or uncertain lot runs—not to mention the challenges decades-old presses pose for automation projects. He was having none of that. His point was: we have to automate to compete with the world—no excuses . Automation takes many forms, and I’ve witnessed some great applications in both our captive forging member shops as well as our traditional job shops. It can be done, and FIA will continue to offer workshops and plant tours showing examples and know-how. Take a look at the reshoring webinar recap article in this issue or listen to the webinar yourself on the FIA website. Sincerely, James R. Warren

The Virus, the Economy, the Election and Reshoring The Virus Face shields, gloves, protective clothing— sound familiar? The forging industry could teach the world something about protecting

oneself; we are the maestros of PPE. None of us would dream of operating a hammer press, steel making operation, or downstream forging operation without our PPE. I’m proud of this industry for how serious it takes safety. I could not have dreamed that our attitude toward safety would be so important to share with the world right now. In our plants, we partner with our forging teams to keep each other safe, but at the end of the day, in a private or public company, you wear the PPE or you’re out. Thank you to forging safety committees and company leaders for your PPE leadership. Essential businesses need to remain healthy, because you’re an essential business. I would like to think that all people are essential and that the collective public needs to take a page from our PPE playbook. Don’t be afraid to be that PPE leader as you go about your business away from the plant—we need you! This economy cannot afford to have you not be a full-time PPE leader. Here in the office, our CFO/COO has left no PPE stone unturned and has the staff and any members visiting or attending FIA training workshops fully protected. There are lots of analyses out there on this virus, but one that caught my eye is Goldman Sachs’s assertion that mask wearing could save the domestic economy from a 5% hit to GDP. As of this writing, retailers are stepping up mandatory mask wearing; NAM has announced its “Wear a Face Covering” campaign (www.nam. org), and we need to do our part. What was that saying . . . “It’s the economy, silly!” The Economy: ITR Economics Team is Back Alan’s team is back after an outstanding effort in the May issue of FIAMagazine, lauded by many members for its detailed exploration of COVID-19’s impact on our forging markets. For the August issue, his team has mapped out the most likely scenario for our markets in the coming quarters and years. With a 94.7% forecast accuracy record, Alan and team are worth following, and we’re pleased to have him back. Here, I’d like to offer a special thank you to Wozniak Industries for their sponsorship of this important research and article; please see their new ad on the back inside cover of this issue.

President and CEO Forging Industry Association

PUBLISHER James R. Warren jwarren@forging.org CONTRIBUTOR Angela Gibian angela@forging.org Editorial Staff

Board of Directors

Peter Campbell Joseph Cipriani John Coward Robert Dimitrieff Marcelo T. Garza

Ron K. Janzen Chelsea Lantto John Pale Greg Timmons Dan Ulven

OPERATIONS Joseph R. Boni joe@forging.org DESIGN Lorean Crowder lorean@forging.org

CHAIRMAN Mike Gill VICE CHAIRMAN Douglas McIntyre

FIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2020 1