Maintaining an operational fleet hinges on its platforms’ ability to quickly enact repairs. Localizing critical part manufacturing increases supply stability, reduces costs, ensures quality control, and enhances job skills. New technologies can provide high-quality, easily reproducible parts with low waste.

Additive manufacturing offers many advantages. Once a part has been made, it can be reproduced multiple times without a reduction in quality. The same machine can produce multiple different parts, and parts can be quickly modified to suit specific needs. 3D-printing technology is continually advancing. Several materials are available for use, including resins and metals, and newer machines print parts in one continuous piece, enhancing strength and durability. The ability to print with multiple materials suggests that even complex circuit boards could be readily manufactured on site.

Computer numerical control (CNC) manufacturing, in which software directs the movement of machinery and tools, produces consistent parts from raw materials. These machines involve more waste than additive manufacturing, but techniques such as nesting—which creates the optimal arrangement of cuts on a sheet—can help get the most out of raw materials. CNC is used in multiple industries for both 2D and 3D manufacturing.

Injection molding, as the name implies, involves injecting material into a custom mold to produce a part. This method is enhanced with CNC and 3D-printing technologies because the molds can be made, remade, or adjusted as needed. Injection molding can use materials that might be difficult to use in additive or CNC manufacturing.

Digital scanning technology offers an easy way to manufacture custom or obsolete parts. If a part needs to be designed to fit a certain space or meet a particular specification, a digital scan can provide accurate and detailed measurements. In addition, the scanned part or space can then be sent digitally to other sites or maintained in a central database, further enhancing manufacturing capabilities across the fleet.

The capability to manufacture any part, anywhere, is a formidable force multiplier. Location of a platform in need of a simple repair becomes irrelevant, as any site would be able to produce a required part with just the digital file. For example, for an injection molded part, the site simply would download the injection mold file, upload it to a 3D printer, then use the mold to make the part—quality controls already would be in place to ensure reliability. Then the jet, ship, or submarine would install the part and continue its mission. Depending on the size of the part and capabilities of the manufacturing machines, this process could be completed in a single day, if not a few hours.

Another benefit to manufacturing critical parts on site is supply chain stability. Instead of relying on outside entities to manufacture a part and ship it, a local manufacturing facility (LMF) would make the part and hand it to the platform in need or send it using military transport lines. The effects include lower cost and shorter lead times.1

Keeping on hand raw materials that can be used to make many different parts further increases utility and flexibility.

Multiple LMFs operating in a network provides a tactical advantage, as well. With a renewed great power competition comes the possibility of strikes on military manufacturing facilities. In the current posture, a central facility could be shut down, causing massive delays and reduced fleet capabilities. LMFs at each naval installation would provide a backup in the event a site is disabled.

All parts have a service life, but poor manufacturing quality control reduces that life, which leads to increased platform upkeep. Keeping quality control within the Navy avoids potential contractor issues such as substandard or counterfeit parts. And with control over the production process, the Navy could identify any defective parts prior to end user receipt and reduce rejection rates, delay times, and waste.

The skills needed to fabricate parts using computer-aided design and manufacturing software differ from those of typical manufacturing. These new skills better align with modern technology, keeping the fleet and sailors’ experience relevant. Recruitment is then aided by more enticing job opportunities.

In an era of renewed great power competition, fleet assets need to operate at their full capability. Changing how critical parts are made would reduce costs, freeing resources that could be used elsewhere, and quickly provide high-quality critical parts for multiple platforms across multiple locations.

1. Pacific Research Laboratories, “5 Benefits of Local Manufacturing in the Pacific Northwest,” 25 September 2020, www.pacific-research.com/5-benefits-of-local-manufacturing-in-the-pacific-northwest-prl/.

Chief Larson is an Electronics Technician Maintenance School instructor at TriTraFac Bangor, Washington. He began his service in 2007, completing tours in the USS Jefferson City (SSN-759) and Wyoming (SSBN-742) and as a radiological controls technician at Nuclear Regional Maintenance Department Kings Bay, Georgia.

Sign up to get updates about new releases and event invitations.

You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Proceedings this month.

Non-members can read five free Proceedings articles per month. Join now and never hit a limit.