August 2023 Volume 5

PRESIDENT'S NOTE

President's Note

Stanley Black & Decker (Craftsman owner) closing the recently opened and ‘attempted’ highly-automated Texas plant built to forge Craftsman tools (we’re planning a rebuttal editorial). Across the membership I believe we’re just not hearing stories like this thanks to the great integrators and press builders who serve our industry. And our captive forging members that have automation have been quite successful and great examples to the membership for years. Government Relations After a nearly yearlong effort of turbocharging our lobbying efforts, I’m happy to report the U.S. Senate has appropriated funds for a ‘Metal Forging Innovation’ program under the DOD budget. Following this to its conclusion (the funding still has to pass Conference reconciliation this Fall) this will be the first significant (millions) government funding to the FIA in our 110-year history. This investment in the industry would come at a time of record grants given to universities (and now community/trade schools) by FIERF – which does not have endless funds. In addition to FIA FIERF’s Technical Roadmap (revised November 2022), we’ve developed and presented a great forging automation plan to the DOD for working with our community colleges located closest to our membership to train-up ‘robot heroes’ at a quicker pace, as our members increasingly install automation and seek more permanent position automation specialists. A special thanks here to your FIA Board of Directors who approved this additional investment in lobbying, the FIA GR Team, and most importantly the FIA members who stayed over during FIA’s Lobby Day for the ‘extra’ lobbying effort to make this happen – Scot Forge, Weber Metals, Ellwood Group, Modern Forge, and Southwest Steel Processing (Park Ohio). Exciting times for FIA members I would say! As always, the staff and I enjoy working with you all and sincerely appreciate your support. Best regards,

I hope everyone is having a great summer! I can’t help but notice how it flies once the July 4th holiday has passed. There was a time when FIA staff would catch a breather during these months, but there is much to do, and meaty issues on the plate to work on, so we keep a steady, if not frantic pace, during these summer months.

Workforce Development So, let us start at the beginning – the workforce! We do not get very far without one, right? Kudos to the FIERF Board of Trustees and staff for knocking out the first-ever Forge the Future Summer Camp in July with 27 future forgers in attendance. Special thanks to our members who were part of the program (Tri-C, American Axle & Manufacturing, SIFCO, Fives North American Combustion, Scientific Forming Technologies, Enprotech and Colorado School of Mines) and our Cleveland-based member, Pursuit Aerospace, who provided a great plant tour experience. As our staff experienced, keeping young people (middle schoolers to early high schoolers) engaged and safe takes some serious energy and focus! Moving into the college years, the 2023 FIERF Forging Competition was a great success with nine schools participating in creating their custom “tuning forks” and Ben Abbott of ‘Forged in Fire’ making a special appearance at Forge Fair to emcee the awards and visit with members and schools. The 2024 competition is already in the works for the week of April 22nd in Milwaukee, WI. Visit www.fierf.org If you didn’t know, it is the five year anniversary for the FIA Forging Automation Conference & Plant Tours event. We are back in Canton, Ohio alongside the Forging Foundation Golf Outing at Firestone. The event includes plant tours of TimkenSteel Faircrest plant (August 23rd) where attendees will see one of the largest North American installed vertical bloom casters, and ArtiFlex Manufacturing (August 24th) which features several automated processes. We know automation success is not guaranteed and many of you reached out to me after seeing the news in Wall Street Journal of for more details. Automation

James R. Warren President and CEO Forging Industry Association

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

Board of Directors

Antonio Alvarez Robert Brodhead Mark Candy Mark Derry Robert Dimitrieff

Jose Lozano Mike Morgus Matt Natale James Romeo Joe Schwegman

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Amanda Dureiko amanda@forging.org DESIGN Lorean Crowder lorean@forging.org

CHAIRPERSON Chelsea Lantto VICE CHAIRPERSON Jim Kravec

FIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2023 1