February 2025 Volume 7

INDUSTRY NEWS

BREAKING THROUGH THE NOISE By Bryan Bender

Breaking Through the Noise FIA is using the levers of Washington’s “ideas industry” to press for more informed and effective policies. In this age of information overload, educating our biggest customers about what we do, and why it remains as consequential as ever, can prove challenging. Vying for the attention of decision makers in government and major industries that rely on forgings and castings requires engaging them with a compelling narrative and actionable information where they regularly turn for knowl edge and solutions. FIA’s public policy and lobbying strategy has included an aggres sive effort in recent months to further break through the noise and enlighten acquisition officials and prime contractors and other less traditional influencers about how the forging industry is sharp ening America’s technological edge and the policy choices and investments we must make together to meet growing demands. Through proactive engagements with the news media, trade associations, think tank scholars, and other opinion leaders, FIA is helping to shape the conversations in the Washington “ideas industry” that will help determine the future of our industry – and the nation’s economic competitiveness, energy independence, and national security. A key message of the association is that for too long the federal government has overlooked a sector that is critical to our industrial might – one that, despite the challenges of the last few decades, has the capacity to deliver more for the country, including the armed forces. “There remains a prevailing bias in acquisition offices and among prime contractors to favor what are perceived to be the higher-tech sectors of the gig economy,” Interim CEO Angela Gibian wrote in the January edition of National Defense Magazine. “But just as forging was a central ingredient of America’s leadership in the Industrial Revolution, it remains so in the digital age, where even some of the most automated equipment and weapons platforms require that mix of carbon, steel, aluminum, titanium, nickel or alloys to perform their required functions.” The journal is published by the National Defense Industrial Association, a leading voice of the defense industry and where Pentagon officials, Congress, and executives convene. The commentary included some concrete steps that the govern

ment can take to tap into the industry’s extra capacity, including streamlining the process for adding forging companies to approved vendor lists; adding more varied types of materials; extending the period of contracts; and making additional invest ments in new furnaces, scanning technology, and other infrastruc ture and workforce development programs. It is one of multiple levers that FIA is now employing to build greater support for the industry, educate our partners on the preemptive action our industry is taking to automate more opera tions and nurture the next-generation workforce, and identify some of the collective steps that can unleash our full capacity to The stepped-up advocacy campaign kicked off in the Fall of 2024 to coincide with the release of an independent assessment on forging capacity that FIA commissioned from the accounting firm Wipfli. Roughly half of the 41 forging companies surveyed reported they are operating only at a 52% capacity utilization level, while underutilization was even more pronounced among those that responded that they primarily do defense-related work. FIA leadership employed an advertising strategy to highlight the study results for military acquisition leaders and major contrac tors, including through a campaign titled “Forgings for Defense: The Capacity To Meet The Moment” that appeared in the must read Defense News, which ran for 90 days and reached more than 300,000 readers. The banner ads, which appeared regularly on the Defense News homepage and embedded within related articles, was buttressed by a dedicated website with additional information, including a short video on forging, then and now, and insights “on the issues” directly from executives at Scot Forge, Ellwood Specialty Metals, and Trenton Forging Company. FIA also utilized Defense News, one of the most widely defense trade publications, to sponsor specialized articles about the forging industry’s role in national defense and the challenges and opportu nities ahead. They included a commentary titled “Failure to invest in forging industry jeopardizes our military edge, along with a Q&A with meet the nation’s needs. Leveraging Capacity

FIA MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2025 72