Defense Innovation Unit launches Blue Manufacturing initiative
Leveraging additive manufacturing to strengthen the US supply chain for speed and scale
For nearly a decade, the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has identified, prototyped and scaled commercial technologies that deliver advantages to warfighters. DIU’s new Blue Manufacturing initiative calls for trusted partners, parts production, and advanced manufacturing capabilities (read: additive manufacturing) and is the first in a broader effort to ensure that the best advanced manufacturing is brought to bear for national security. With Blue Manufacturing, AM is taking center stage among the key technologies identified by DIU.
DIU is the only DoD organization focused exclusively on fielding and scaling commercial technology across the U.S. military at commercial speeds. Working in seven critical technology sectors, the DIU team engages directly within the venture capital and commercial technology innovation ecosystem, many of which are working with the DoD for the first time. This streamlined process delivers prototypes to DoD partners and scalable revenue opportunities for commercial vendors within 12 to 24 months.
“At DIU, we have the opportunity to work with a number of commercially derived tech companies who are incredibly advanced in their hardware and software in support of defense needs, many of whom will need to scale dramatically to meet the need to help expand threats and reestablish deterrence. At the same time, there are incredible companies in advanced manufacturing – right here in the United States – doing everything from digital engineering to 3D printing and everything in between, that are looking for a lot more places to deploy their capabilities so that they can grow, and who want to contribute to national security,” said DIU Director, Doug Beck. “The Blue Manufacturing Initiative will focus on pairing the very best hardware and software manufacturers in defense technology with the best advanced manufacturing providers to help both strategically critical industries to scale.”
Rethinking the “States” of manufacturing
To meet current and future threats, the US Department of Defense established that it must rethink the current state of manufacturing, which is fragmented and often dependent on a traditional supply chain with limited capacity and – in many cases – relying on adversaries for key components.
Blue Manufacturing is a call for trusted partners, parts production and advanced manufacturing capabilities and is the first in a broader effort to ensure the best advanced manufacturing is brought to bear for US national security.
The DoD established that the manufacturing base of the future needs to be trusted, resilient and can deliver next-generation technologies at speed and scale. This is an area that commercial technology can help solve for the Department, and that the Department can help catalyze for the rest of U.S. manufacturing.
DIU has long interacted with various advanced manufacturing firms in support of efforts in autonomy, space, and other areas. With Blue Manufacturing, DIU aims to qualify advanced commercial manufacturers and enable them to connect rapidly with cutting-edge technology companies. Through these relationships, Blue Manufacturing seeks to develop and integrate commercial technology with a trusted manufacturing innovation base in advanced areas like 3D printing, automation, and high-rate production to scale production quickly, securely, and globally.
Additive manufacturing taking center stage
The first step in this initiative is to create the Blue Manufacturing Marketplace to establish a pre-vetted catalog of trusted advanced manufacturing companies capable of scaling defense technology production.
Vendors seeking to be accepted into the Blue Manufacturing marketplace can submit their solutions through an assessment process and leverage DIU’s new multi-stakeholder partnership authority (10 U.S.C. § 4127(e)). The initial Blue Manufacturing Marketplace cohort assessment will identify trusted manufacturing partners in six categories for Department needs, including:
- Parts Production: Large-format metal additive
- Parts Production: Small-format metal additive
- Parts Production: Composite or ceramic additive
- Parts Production: Automated metal machining and forming
- Automated and advanced post-processing
- 3D printed tooling
A team of subject matter experts will evaluate submissions and select finalists, screening for key things like cyber, adversarial capital, supply chain risk, etc. In the short term, a successful Marketplace will enable technology companies to seamlessly identify and work with trusted manufacturing entities. Longer-term success will enable the DoD and USG to have a stronger U.S. and partner-based supply chain for scaling needed technologies.
In addition, DIU plans to conduct AOIs in the coming year to continue developing various other areas of advanced manufacturing.
Interested parties can submit their application using the form at this link.
