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20 Oct 22. DOD Releases Report on Defense Spending by State in Fiscal Year 2021. Today, the Department of Defense’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation released its Fiscal Year 2021 Defense Spending by State report to help states and communities better understand the components of defense spending on procurement and personnel.
The report’s graphs, maps, and tables present a range of findings, such as total spending figures, categories of contracted goods and services, major defense vendors, and numbers and types of defense personnel. This snapshot provides public and private leaders with a starting place to assess how defense investments across installations and the private sector can be optimized by supporting regional innovation, industrial capability and capacity, supply chain resilience, and cultivating a skilled workforce.
“Understanding the depth and reach of our contract spending is essential as we strive to strengthen our defense industrial base,” said William LaPlante, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Sustainment. “The Department of Defense requires resilient, diverse, and secure supply chains to limit vulnerabilities and ensure the development and sustainment of critical capabilities. This report is a great tool our state and local partners should use to better understand and strengthen supply chains in their regions, which are essential to national security, economic security, and our technological competitiveness and innovation.”
Defense spending fell in Fiscal Year 2021. Department of Defense (DoD) contract obligations and payroll spending in the 50 states and the District of Columbia decreased by $34.9 bn, or 5.6 percent, over the prior year. This was the product of a 9.2 percent decrease in DoD contract obligations. Personnel spending in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, however, increased by 3.5 percent.
DoD contract obligations and payroll spending in the 50 states and the District of Columbia totaled $559 bn, which is 2.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). If the total spending were divided across every U.S. resident, it would amount to $1,684 per U.S. citizen. Of those funds, $398.7bn (71 percent) were spent on contracts for products and services, while the remaining $160.3bn (29 percent) paid the salaries of DOD personnel.
Virginia, California, and Texas topped the list of recipients for overall defense spending. However, Virginia, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia ranked highest when considering defense spending impacts on their respective states GDP.
New York, Washington and Massachusetts had the largest overall increases in DoD spending from Fiscal Year 2019 to 2020. This was driven by large contracts to Pfizer, Inc. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in New York, Boeing and ANA Holdings in Washington, and Moderna, Inc. in Massachusetts. The contracts in New York and Massachusetts were related to COVID-19 vaccine and treatment purchases by DoD, in coordination with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contracts in Washington procured and maintained aircraft and missiles.
Eight of the ten companies were on this list in Fiscal Year 2020. Pfizer, Inc. and Moderna, Inc. were both new to the list and are anomalies for traditional defense spending.
According to Patrick O’Brien, the Director of the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation, “the contract and personnel data in this report presents governors, local officials, and other leaders with topline information to help them better understand the key role businesses and industries play supporting our nation’s defense. States and localities should use this data to identify opportunities to build and strengthen key supply chains, further develop workforce skills, and enhance and improve our military installations and defense industrial base to make them more resilient and competitive.”
This analysis primarily entailed an examination of DoD funded prime- and sub-award contract data and defense personnel and payroll figures drawn from an array of sources, including the DoD’s Defense Manpower Data Center and USAspending.gov, which is managed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The FY21 report, as well as previous years’ reports, can be found on the OLDCC website at: https://oldcc.gov/dsbs-fy2021.
A supplemental analysis report of DoD contract and personnel spending in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands of the United States will be available later this year. (Source: US DoD)
17 Oct 22. Lawmakers seek emergency powers for Pentagon’s Ukraine war contracting. Bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate would grant the Pentagon wartime procurement powers, allowing it to buy massive amounts high-priority munitions using multi-year contracts to help Ukraine fight Russia and to refill U.S. stockpiles.
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s chairman, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and ranking member, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., proposed the legislation as an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill, which the Senate is expected to vote on in November. It was offered instead of the critical munitions acquisition fund that the Pentagon and some lawmakers sought for the same purposes, before Senate appropriators rejected it.
The amendment, the text of which was released last week, offers multi-year contracting authorities typically reserved for Navy vessels and major aircraft. As drafted, it would let the Pentagon lock in purchases of certain munitions made by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, BAE Systems and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace over fiscal 2023 and 2024, a step aimed at encouraging manufacturers to expand production lines for sought-after munitions.
The Pentagon would also be permitted to team with NATO to buy weapons for its members in mass quantities, and for Ukraine-related contracts, the legislation would ease several key legal restrictions on Pentagon procurement through fiscal 2024 ― a sign lawmakers see the war dragging on.
The intent of the legislation is to spur the Pentagon and industry to move more aggressively by removing bureaucratic barriers, with an eye not only on Russia but the potential for a confrontation with China over Taiwan, according to a senior congressional aide who spoke to Defense News on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.
“Whether you want to call it wartime contracting or emergency contracting, we can’t play around anymore,” the aide said. “We can’t pussyfoot around with minimum-sustaining-rate buys of these munitions. It’s hard to think of something as high on everybody’s list as buying a ton of munitions for the next few years, for our operational plans against China and continuing to supply Ukraine.”
If the language becomes law, the Department of Defense would be allowed to make non-competitive awards to arms manufacturers for Ukraine-related contracts, an idea spearheaded in legislation from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and 13 other senators.
The Inhofe-Reed amendment would also grant special emergency procurement authorities reserved for contingency operations and waive a requirement that contractors provide certified cost and pricing data, a safeguard intended to help ensure the Pentagon is paying reasonable prices.
Criticism from Capitol Hill
The move comes amid criticism from Capitol Hill and the defense industry that the Pentagon is moving too slowly. Of the $6bn Congress appropriated this year to buy equipment for Ukraine, DoD has awarded $1.2bn, and of $12.5bn appropriated to replace U.S. stockpiles of weapons sent to Ukraine, just $1.5bn has been awarded, the Pentagon said Sept. 20.
“This is an effort to speed up contracting,” said Mark Cancian, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We’ve been hearing from industry, when we talk to them about this issue, that they want to see a demand signal. DoD has been saying the right things but they haven’t been providing that demand signal. And when you look at the amount of money actually obligated, it’s very low.”
One aim of the amendment is to signal to the defense industry that it’s time to restart or to re-energize dormant supply lines. Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said during a July earnings call that the Pentagon had yet to put the contracts in place or coordinate with industry to buy more supplies, a process that could take two to three years. “And I can tell you the clutch isn’t engaged yet,” Taiclet said.
While the legislation will likely be welcomed by the defense industry, Julia Gledhill, a defense analyst in the Center for Defense Information at the non-partisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said Monday that Congress should leave protections against defense spending bloat in place.
“Ukraine aid shouldn’t be another way for contractors to nickel and dime the Pentagon, wasting taxpayer dollars and undermining the purpose of assistance: to support the Ukrainian people,” Gledhill said. “But the amendment further deteriorates already weak guardrails in place to prevent corporate price gouging of the military.” (Source: Defense News)
18 Oct 22. Bloomberg-led panel meets to advise Pentagon on capital and innovation. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg and other members of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s reinstated innovation advisory board met for the first time to explore the Pentagon’s relationship with investment capital and find ways to speed the adoption of new technologies.
The Defense Innovation Board met Oct. 17 with a new slate of members chaired by Bloomberg, the former New York City Mayor and founder of Bloomberg LP. The group includes leaders from across the defense, business and education sectors convened to offer independent recommendations on Pentagon technology challenges.
The board was set up in 2016 to bring the technological innovation and best practice of Silicon Valley to the U.S. Military. This week’s meeting was the group’s first since 2021, when Austin cleared the rosters of the Pentagon’s 40 advisory boards and conducted a review due to concerns about last-minute appointments by the Trump administration.
“Over the years, the board has been successful in bringing new ideas forward, including on talent and culture, digital transformation, software acquisition and artificial intelligence,” Bloomberg said during a brief public meeting that followed closed sessions with Austin and other senior leaders. “It’s also adopted principles and best practices from business to help the department run more smoothly. But there is much more that we can do, and I’m looking forward to that challenge.”
Executive Director Colleen Laughlin said Austin charged the panel with informing the Pentagon’s National Defense Science and Technology Strategy.
The study is focused on ensuring the department is adequately investing in critical and emerging technology areas, which Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu identified in February. The 14 areas include hypersonics, space, artificial intelligence, directed energy and advanced computing.
Shyu told C4ISRNET in an interview on Oct. 10 that her team conducted a review of the military funding for these priorities and expects to issue a report early next year.
During the closed session, the board received a briefing from Shyu on the S&T strategy and the “innovation ecosystem.” They also heard from Mara Karlin, assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities, who discussed the National Defense Strategy, and were provided an update on the department’s digital modernization plan.
Ryan Swan, a Defense Innovation Board member and chief data and analytics officer at financial investment firm Vanguard, said Austin wants the panel to consider how the department might signal to the commercial market that it’s serious about investing in the technologies Shyu highlighted. He asked the board to offer recommendations on building a DoD workforce that can perform advanced analytics and cybersecurity.
Former Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper, who also sits on the board, said the strategy offers the department an opportunity to consider what “tomorrow’s war” will look like and what enabling technology may be required to win it.
He noted that just as the war in Ukraine highlights past discussion and planning for network-enabled weapons and integrated commercial services, the outcomes of future conflicts will rely heavily on the foresight of today’s leaders.
“This has been thought about, it’s been talked about, it’s been invested in and now it’s happening,” Roper said. “Looking at the S&T strategy for the department is simply bringing that same vision.”
Getting .com and .gov together
Austin challenged the panel to consider how the Pentagon might take advantage of private sector investment and innovation, particularly as more commercial companies are developing capabilities that could have national security applications.
Roper said he’s glad Austin is focused on leveraging privately funded innovation, calling it “a trend that this building has to get its head around.”
Finding ways to better take advantage of a broader, more diverse industrial base, he said, could help “counterbalance” some of the consolidation that’s occurred across the defense sector, allowing companies that are building capability for both the government and commercial markets to partner with DoD.
“Allowing companies that are a little bit of ‘.com’ and a little bit of ‘.gov’ to be able to work successfully in national security on their path toward global success can be a winning formula for the U.S. and one that really unlocks the potential of our market economy,” Roper said. “It’s a great first area for us to look at.”
Retired Adm. Michael Mullen, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 to 2011 and has since served on corporate boards for several companies, said he’s been surprised at how difficult it is for non-traditional defense firms to do business with DoD.
“It’s just been stunning to me,” he said. “I think we need to figure out a way to make it easier.” (Source: Defense News)
18 Oct 22. US military in decline, threats from China ‘formidable,’ report says. U.S. military power was weaker this year than the year prior, according to a new report by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that analyzes the strength of the armed forces and the threats to America.
The “2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength” focuses on the need for readiness in not one, but two wars — or “major regional contingencies (MRCs),” as the authors put it — with the theory that such a standard would prevent another competitor from taking advantage of U.S. preoccupation with another challenge. But the U.S. currently does not meet that goal, with the report rating America’s military power as “weak,” down from “marginal” in the previous year’s index.
“The 2023 Index concludes that the current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single major regional conflict while also attending to various presence and engagement activities,” the report read. “It most likely would not be able to do more and is certainly ill-equipped to handle two nearly simultaneous MRCs.”
The report assessed three major factors: the global operating environment, threats to U.S. interests and U.S. military power. Here are the findings:
US can still globally project power
The global operating environment, aggregated across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, is still favorable to the U.S. and its ability to project military power, according to the report.
“This does not mean that we view Latin America and Africa as unimportant. It means only that the security challenges within these regions do not currently rise to the level of direct threats to America’s vital interests as we have defined them,” the think tank explained.
Despite challenges across each geographic region, the U.S. remains empowered to project its forces, even after Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.
In Europe and Asia, alliances and military posture in those regions help the U.S. project its power. However, the U.S. risks losing its “moderate” rating in the Middle East.
“Although the region’s overall score remains ‘moderate,’ as it was last year, it is in danger of falling to ‘poor’ because of political instability and growing bilateral tensions with allies over the security implications of the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran and how best to fight the Islamic State,” the report said.
The European and Pacific theaters remain marked as “favorable” to U.S. military projection.
Russia and China
Researchers also said Russia and China each present “aggressive” behavior and have “formidable” capabilities. Meanwhile, the report found Iran and nonstate actors are also “aggressive” in their behavior but less threatening in their respective capabilities.
North Korea’s behavior is less so, while its ability to threaten the U.S. is equal to that of Iran, but stronger than that of nonstate actors.
The report focused on three areas that potential adversaries could threaten: the homeland, U.S. allies in a given region and “international common spaces.”
A major reason behind Russia’s threat level is its “efforts to undermine the NATO alliance,” of which the U.S. in a member.
“[Russia] still maintains the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, and although a strike on the U.S. is highly unlikely, the latent potential for such a strike still gives these weapons enough strategic value vis-à-vis America’s NATO allies and interests in Europe to ensure their continued relevance,” the report said.
But China remained the most “comprehensive security challenge” to U.S. forces across all areas considered by the report, with the Heritage Foundation citing the technological advances of the Chinese military.
“The Chinese launched their first homegrown aircraft carrier during the past year and are fielding large numbers of new platforms for their land, sea, air, and outer-space forces as well as in the electromagnetic domain,” the report said.
A force in decline
The report also offered an assessment of U.S. military power among the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force, looking at the capacity, capability and readiness of each on a scale of very weak, weak, marginal, strong and very strong. Only the Marine Corps ranked “strong” overall, the report noted.
The Army scored “marginal,” while the Air Force was ranked “very weak” and the Navy “weak.” The report backed calls for a naval force armed with 400 manned ships to meet its missions, but said the service’s fleet of 298 ships cannot keep up with an “intensified operational tempo.”
“Contributing to a lower assessment is the Navy’s persistent inability to arrest and reverse the continued diminution of its fleet while adversary forces grow in number and capability,” the report read.
The Air Force’s main issues are related to pilot training and retention as well as its aging aircraft fleet, the report said. The think tank suggested the service could win in a single major regional contingency but would struggle against a “peer competitor.”
“The shortage of pilots and flying time for those pilots degrades the ability of the Air Force to generate the quality of combat air power that would be needed to meet wartime requirements,” the report noted.
The newest service, the Space Force, also was labeled “weak,” with the report citing “slow and incremental” efforts to modernize aging platforms. (Source: Defense News)
18 Oct 22. Defense Innovation Board Holds Inaugural Meeting at Pentagon. A new roster of members of the Defense Innovation Board met Monday at the Pentagon for the first time. Michael Bloomberg is the board’s chair.
The DIB was established in 2016 and provides Defense Department leadership with advice and recommendations on innovative ways to address departmental challenges with a focus on people and culture, technology and capabilities, and practices and operations.
The board held closed sessions early in the day when they met with Pentagon leadership to discuss Defense Department priorities and challenges, including investment capital and the department’s National Defense Science and Technology Strategy. In the afternoon, the board held a public session to introduce new members.
“I know I speak for all my fellow board members when … I say we’re honored to have been asked to serve at such a critical time,” Bloomberg said. “The U.S. Department of Defense has built the greatest military force in the world, and it’s always incredibly impressive to hear from Secretary Austin and his senior team — as we’ve done throughout the day today. There’s certainly no shortage of challenges and opportunities facing them right now … adaptability and innovation have become increasingly critical to the Pentagon, and to American security and leadership around the world.”
With increasing challenges for the United States and the U.S. military, Bloomberg said partnerships with the U.S. private sector are more critical now than ever before.
“America’s private sector leads in global R&D…and the private sector has a vital role to play in expanding our nation’s capabilities,” Bloomberg said. “That requires not just new ideas, but also new partnerships that can better connect businesses, government and academia.”
Helping to identify those partnerships, and to make those partnerships happen, Bloomberg said, is one of the primary roles of the DIB.
“Put simply, we are not doing our jobs here if we are not…drawing on the strengths of the private sector and helping service members do their jobs across the globe,” Bloomberg said.
“The DIB was established to help spur innovation across the department and bridge the public and private sectors,” Bloomberg said. “Over the years the board has been successful in bringing new ideas forward, including on talent and culture, digital transformation, software acquisition, and artificial intelligence. It’s also adopted principles and best practices from business to help the department run more smoothly. There is much more that we can do — and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
In addition to Bloomberg, the DIB includes seven new members from across industry, government and academia.
Gilda Barabino, president at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
Susan Gordon, a member of the boards of directors at CACI International, Avantus Federal, MITRE, and BlackSky
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, co-founder of Inflection AI, and partner at Greylock
Navy Adm. (ret.) Michael Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former chief of naval operations
William Roper Jr., distinguished professor at Georgia Tech, senior advisor at McKinsey and Company and former assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics
Ryan Swann, chief data analytics officer at Vanguard
William “Mac” Thornberry, former chairman of the Armed Services Committee and member of the board of directors at CAE USA. (Source: US DoD)
18 Oct 22. Budget Matters: Congress Leaves Defense Department Hanging. During the spring and summer, there was a common refrain coming from the hawks on the Hill: the president’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal short-changed national security. The $773bn request for the Defense Department — $813bn total for national defense — simply would not cut it in the current environment.
“I am very concerned that this budget would result in real cuts in defense spending at exactly the wrong time,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, during a May 3 hearing.
“In a fiscal environment with 8.5 percent inflation, the department’s budget request equates to a cut to our national defense at a time of unprecedented security risks,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., at the same hearing.
Similar concerns were raised in the House about the request, which was a 4 percent increase above enacted 2022 funding.
Both chambers walked their talk when drafting versions of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. The House bill, passed in July, added $37bn to the White House proposal, and the Senate Armed Services Committee mark added $45 bn.
In a statement about the SASC’s passage of the 2023 NDAA, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., stated that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and worldwide inflation required the committee to increase defense funding.
“This year’s markup advances U.S. military capabilities in response to China and Russia,” he said. “It targets research-and-development investments that will give our forces major advantages.”
Since then… crickets.
In September, the National Defense Industrial Association issued a white paper warning Congress that since 2021, inflation has eaten up $50bn in Pentagon purchasing power. The lack of real growth in defense spending has also resulted in a $110bn execution loss.
Yet, the full Senate did not vote on the draft NDAA before the end of the fiscal year, and Congress failed to pass any spending bills before Sept. 30.
Instead, Congress once again resorted to a continuing resolution to keep the government funded until Dec. 16.
That resolution meant that the Defense Department started fiscal year 2023 with the same funding as 2022, and no adjustment for the roughly 9 percent inflation since the beginning of fiscal year 2022.
The resolution expressly prohibits new starts, production increases or “the initiation, resumption, or continuation of any project, activity, operation, or organization … for which appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available during fiscal year 2022.”
One program caught up in this is the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, which is designed to take promising prototypes and run them through practical experimentation to validate and transition to production. The program received $35 m in initial funding in 2022, and the Pentagon was seeking $358 m for 2023, which is supposed to be the program’s first full year of operation.
National Defense asked the Pentagon how the reserve would move forward and for examples of programs and initiatives stalled by the continuing resolution. The response was a pithy but clear, diplomatic message to the Hill.
“Under a CR we cannot start new initiatives, including increased investments in cyber, nuclear modernization and missile defense, and we lose buying power,” said spokesperson Lt. Cdr. Tim Gorman in an email. “Timely enactment of appropriations allows the department to spend taxpayers’ money in the most deliberate and efficient manner to implement the National Defense Strategy.”
So, for all the talk in Congress about the need for the Defense Department to procure more new platforms and speed up innovation and modernization to keep pace with China, Congress tied the department’s hands most likely until early next year when the next Congress can get around to passing 2023 funding bills.
Of course, this is nothing new. Only eight times since 1977 has Congress passed an NDAA prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. The average is 42 days after, according to the Congressional Research Service brief, “FY2023 NDAA: Status of Legislative Activity.”
The offices of the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate majority leader did not respond to requests for explanations as to why the Senate, for all its bluster about the need to boost the defense budget, didn’t bother to pass an NDAA or funding bill before the start of the new fiscal year.
The one positive note in the continuing resolution was that Congress appropriated $12.3bn in additional funding to support Ukraine.
According to a House summary of the resolution, that amount includes $3bn for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which provides training, equipment, weapons, stipends, sustainment and intelligence support for Ukrainian forces. There is $1.5bn to replace equipment drawn from U.S. stocks to send to Ukraine, $540m to ramp up production of critical munitions and an authorization for the president to draw down another $3.7bn of U.S. defense articles to send to Ukraine.
It’s another example of how Congress can respond to a crisis, yet it can’t complete its annual business and provide the national security resources it says the country needs. (Source: glstrade.com/Breaking Defense.com)
14 Oct 22. U.S. Manufacturing Ecosystem Key to Economic Growth, Innovation, Competitiveness. Approaching an era where automation and cognitive computing seamlessly connect to smart factories, supply chains are entering into a fourth industrial revolution known as Industry 4.0. This transformation, through advanced digital technologies across engineering and manufacturing, is set to bring the U.S. manufacturing ecosystem to the forefront of modernization — and with it, a demand for a sustained pipeline of talent and strong domestic manufacturing centers.
“America’s manufacturing ecosystem has been a vital engine of economic growth, innovation, and competitiveness for over 200 years — and has played a critical role in developing and driving the technologies that sustain our national security,” said Bill LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, during an address celebrating October as Manufacturing Month. “Today, the U.S. is in a technological and economic race to maintain its manufacturing edge, particularly as it concerns critical defense systems, such as satellites, advanced munitions and communications technologies.”
Advanced manufacturing is changing the nature of manufacturing — creating new, technically advanced and higher-paying positions. Today’s factories are safe, bright, energetic technology hubs operated and managed by capable, educated individuals — a stark contrast to the depiction of the noisy and dark factories of the past.
Known manufacturing chokepoints across sectors — including skilled labor, machine tools, critical chemicals and a reliance on foreign resources — are impacting operational readiness.
The Defense Department is taking decisive action to combat these challenges in order to achieve two imperatives: to maintain capability and capacity to sustain legacy systems; and to expand and modernize manufacturing capabilities to build tomorrow’s defense systems. This effort requires significant investment in American workers and infrastructure, including $372 m in the president’s fiscal 2023 budget to strengthen the Nation’s supply chains through domestic manufacturing.
“As an engine of economic growth, American manufacturers contribute more than $2.35 trillion to the U.S. economy — every dollar spent in manufacturing results in an additional $2.79 added to the economy, making it the highest multiplier effect of any sector,” said LaPlante.
Manufacturing Economic Benefits
- In the U.S. today, manufacturing represents just 11% of U.S. gross domestic product, yet it accounts for 35% of American productivity growth and 60% of our exports
- U.S. manufacturing is the main engine of innovation in the U.S., responsible for 55% of all patents and 70% of all research and development spending
- Today, manufacturing employs over 12.5m people and provides rewarding, living-wage jobs
- Every manufacturing job spurs 7 to 12 new jobs in other related industries, helping to build and sustain our economy
In support, the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program within the Department’s Acquisition and Sustainment office is leading multiple projects designed to increase industrial manufacturing capability, supply chain capability and resiliency, and workforce development.
Calling for industry, government, and educational institutions to work together, IBAS Program Director Adele Ratcliff recognizes today’s national manufacturing imperative as “a critical time for America — and what is on track to be a national crisis.”
With 64 active and planned projects in key defense industrial base sectors, program efforts assemble a coalition of stakeholders and public-private partnerships designing, building, and producing critical technologies and chemicals to ensure warfighters maintain enduring advantages. Defense-critical sectors at the focus of these efforts include workforce, castings and forgings, microelectronics, batteries, kinetics and critical chemicals.
Skilled Workers
Addressing the threat that an aging and shrinking manufacturing workforce poses to U.S. national security, IBAS has invested approximately $130 m across 16 unique workforce-related projects since the launch of its National Imperative for Industrial Skills initiative in 2020.
NIIS aims to create an enduring, national public-private response to build a robust industrial skills workforce development ecosystem. The initiative recognizes that isolated one-off approaches to solving national skills gaps will not sufficiently move the needle. Instead, the Defense Department is well positioned to drive coordinated efforts for an integrated approach at local, regional and national levels—all built around a common operational model.
The model’s key principles emphasize identifying industry needs and driving collaboration with education, as well as looking at mutual reliance on like facilities, equipment and processes driven by relevant industry needs. This approach focuses on developing a deeper and sustained collaboration among all levels of education (K-12, 2-year post high school, and 4-year post high school) and industry (small and medium manufacturers, large original equipment manufacturers), as well as non-profit and governmental support activities.
This month alone, NIIS activities include the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing Summit in Danville, Virginia., and the X-STEM NOVA conference-style event in Chantilly, Virginia. Both events are uniquely designed to engage stakeholders and inspire students through activities that introduce them to manufacturing processes.
Additionally, the Defense Department program focuses on developing trade skills through national competitions, ‘Project MFG,’ will host the next round of welding competitions at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. To date, over 62 school teams totaling more than 320 individual competitors have participated in Project MFG competitions. The program is currently focused on advanced computer numerical controlled machining, welding, metrology, project management and other industrial skills using leading-edge digital methods.
Next Generation Machine Tools
One flagship IBAS effort working to addresses critical machine tool needs in support of defense manufacturing is America’s Cutting Edge program, which launched in March 2020. The effort combines the scientific expertise of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the research and teaching expertise of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and the workforce development leadership of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation to revitalize the U.S. machine tool sector through transformative thinking, technology, and training.
Through ACENet, an associated network of regional machine tool innovation and workforce development hubs in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia, the Defense Department is working to increase efficiency of existing machine tools while developing skills and training for next generation machine tools for composites and metals. This includes establishing efforts to rapidly train the next generation of machine tool designers and operators.
“For the U.S. to project forward the best weapon systems in the world, it is essential that we stay competitive in these critical skills,” LaPlante said. “Advanced manufacturing innovations are key to how we will adapt and transform defense production and build capacity to respond during a national emergency.”
For example, ACE led efforts during the COVID-19 response to create new tools that helped U.S. manufacturers produce millions of sets of personal protective equipment per day. ACE has also made U.S. machining far more cost effective by devising and implementing a simple test that can improve material removal rates by a factor of three. This simple test saves thousands of hours of machine and operator time and ms of dollars per year. By cooperating with industry, ACE is sharing the test and related information throughout the U.S. machining community.
“We will need to use all the tools at our disposal to support a scale up of new, advanced manufacturing technologies across a range of critical sectors in the defense industrial base – including bio-manufacturing, renewable energy, batteries and microelectronics,” said LaPlante. “We must work to support American workers, by scaling up talent pipelines that will support the advanced manufacturing careers of the future.”
About Manufacturing Month
Each year, Manufacturing Month is recognized throughout October to highlight modern manufacturing efforts and how U.S. manufacturing and innovation are essential to economic and national security. The observance provides the opportunity to showcase how the Defense Department works with industry, academic organizations and public entities to renew and strengthen U.S. manufacturing, raise awareness about advanced manufacturing careers and prepare the current and next generation workforce for the skills and good-paying jobs of the future.
Manufacturing Month highlights the ongoing efforts and progress made by this Administration. The Biden-Harris economy has delivered massive gains for American manufacturing. For instance, manufacturing employment has grown by 668,000 jobs since January 2021 — and as of August 2022 is now 67,000 above the pre-pandemic level — a milestone reached faster than in any post-recession recovery since 1953. More manufacturing jobs were created in 2021 than in any single year in nearly 30 years. The Defense Department’s efforts to bolster manufacturing and innovation ecosystems in communities across America plays an important role in these Administration-wide efforts because it strengthens our national security and helps the U.S. successfully compete in the industries and technologies of the future.
Ms. Bistarkey is a strategic communications lead in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. (Source: US DoD)
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