FIA Save the Date! West Coast Meeting of Members

Exclusive to FIA members. Featured keynotes, economic updates, and panel discussions will offer perspectives to help members navigate change and plan for the future. A dedicated Next Gen workshop for attendees under age 35 focuses on professional development and building a successful career in forging.

The program includes keynotes, panels, breakouts, and interactive roundtables on steel-industry conditions; fabrication businesses, leadership, and industry outlook; AI and digitization in manufacturing; shop-floor equipment use cases and return on investment; and manufacturing’s economic and financial outlook. Sessions also address profitability, capital investment, business growth, tariffs, steel, leadership development, recruitment, small- and midsize-manufacturer growth, and potential changes to tax policy, OSHA and EPA regulations, and tariffs. Roundtable topics include culture, marketing, AI, and operations.

Participants will discuss critical key industry issues that directly impact their business with congressional leaders in Washington, D.C. Topics include fair trade, workforce development, and infrastructure. Meetings with members of the U.S. House and Senate and Capitol Hill visits are being organized in partnership with Inside Beltway.

The meeting showcases IACMI road-mapping efforts, advances in its technology areas, member successes, technical project updates, and workforce development initiatives. It connects decision-makers from major OEMs, small and midsize companies, government agencies, and academic institutions.

The program combines technical and management sessions, exhibits, and presentations for foundry professionals, suppliers, casting designers, buyers, and OEM representatives. Topics include additive manufacturing, casting design and purchasing, engineering, environmental health and safety, ferrous and nonferrous alloys, Industry 4.0, marketing and sales, melting, molding, pouring, quality control, workforce development, and casting case studies, reshoring, material selection, and casting quality. The program also includes the Hoyt Memorial Lecture on integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) and artificial intelligence for sustainable metalcasting. Its themes include alloy design, process innovation, digital manufacturing, workforce development, and using physics-based ICME with AI and machine learning to improve casting development, manufacturing processes, and prediction of microstructure, defects, and mechanical properties.

A metal forming, fabricating, welding, and finishing event where suppliers showcase technology and industry products and developments. The event connects manufacturing decision-makers with suppliers and solutions aimed at improving productivity and business results.

The annual conference addresses marketplace, government, industry, and business trends affecting die casting. Agenda sessions cover a Washington, D.C. update; U.S. manufacturing; the U.S. economy; die-casting strategies; tooling strategies framed as winning over China; an NADCA R&D update; and a roundtable discussion.

The conference covers brazing and soldering research, development, and applications through plenary lectures, demonstrations, exhibits, and multiple tracks of presentations. Topics include aerospace, automotive and structural applications; corrosion of brazed joints; materials and process design and control; solder joining methods; filler-metal properties; mining and heavy equipment; furnace brazing; emerging technologies; joining ceramics, composites, lightweight materials, and refractory metals; and testing and inspection of brazed and soldered joints. The published program includes sessions on brazing ceramics, high-entropy and active filler metals, gas-turbine engines, stainless steels, cemented carbides, filler-metal and solder properties, brazing fluxes and chemical interactions, heat exchangers, properties of brazed and soldered joints, and processes and materials. C3 Committee meetings are also scheduled.

The program pairs morning plenary sessions with concurrent Technology and Education & Workforce Development tracks. Topics include AI in manufacturing, manufacturers’ problems and needs, building ARM Institute-funded project teams, funding opportunities, and enrollment in manufacturing training programs. Interactive activities cover moving ARM-funded projects from development to factory-floor deployment; communicating technology needs, risks, and value in proposals; developing education and workforce grant proposals; and creating immersive learning experiences for manufacturing careers. Other program elements include project updates, five-minute member pitches on organizational capabilities, problems seeking collaborators, and products or services, and an introduction to the revamped ARM Member Community. Attendance is limited to ARM Institute members.