U.S. Dept. of Defense metalcasting research signed into law.

President Bush signed the fiscal year 2005 Defense Appropriation Bill into law on Aug. 6. The measure includes $2.3 million for a cast component cost and leadtime reduction program managed by the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). Industry involvement is coordinated by the American Metalcasting Consortium (AMC), of which AFS was a founding member in 1995.

The AMC Dept. of Defense (DoD) research partnership saves the federal government money and improves the readiness of our military's weapons systems through a three-pronged strategy:

* Research and Development--This includes university-based research on metalcasting processes and materials that is geared toward solving supply or reliability problems for the DLA.

* Enterprise Integration--This is AMC's term for technology transfer activities, which include providing information on the best casting techniques to use in various situations and educating metalcasters on DoD procurement standards.

* CAST-IT--The metalcasting trade associations contribute resources and personnel to this "SWAT" team that solves supply chain problems for the DLA, such as finding qualified metalcasting facilities to make components, developing up-to-date technical data packages, finding suppliers for tooling that no longer exists, etc.