Business View Magazine | September 2019

38 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2019 and helps to ensure that these product orders remain fulfilled by American foundries. NFFS is proud of the ICON portal and the significant impact it has had on reducing the backlog for unfilled casting orders by the U.S. armed services, and is proud to help support America’s war fighters by providing high quality cast components in a cost-effective and timely manner. “NFFS utilizes traditional communication channels, such as email, webinars, and digital newsletters, to speak to its members and to the industry. However, NFFS places real value on interpersonal communication. This is why NFFS works so hard to hold regional meetings and events, where the NFFS staff and Society leadership have a chance to speak one-on-one with our foundry members and industry stakeholders. The NFFS staff also works diligently to regularly visit NFFS member foundries, and learn about the challenges they face first hand. While digital communications have their role to play, NFFS considers the face-to-face communications to be the most informative and fruitful method to speak directly to our industry partners. “Some may argue that the real value of NFFS is the proactive effort the Society invests in defending the industry from harmful new or revised regulations. I will give you an example. Back in 2009, the EPA issued the MACT standards, as required under the Clean Air Act of 1970. The ZZZZZZ rule, or 6Z rule, was developed to address control technologies for non-ferrous foundries. When the EPA was working on crafting the 6Z rule, NFFS worked with the consultants who were writing the rule on behalf of the EPA to identify the feasible maximum control technologies for nonferrous foundries. As a result of NFFS’s efforts, the 6Z rule had several important exemptions for non-ferrous foundries not granted to other industries, such as Iron and Steel Foundries under the 5Z rule. Non-ferrous foundries are not required to do the semi-annual compliance reporting and are exempt for visual stack testing requirements, for example. These exemptions, alone, save non-ferrous foundries tens of thousands of dollars each in overhead pictured NFFS Board Member and President of Calumet Brass Foundry (Dolton, Illinois) inspects a mold poured by her production team.