Reinventing Defense Manufacturing for Speed, Scale & Security
Advanced military manufacturing is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of national security and economic resilience. As geopolitical tensions escalate and warfare evolves through artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and low-cost drone technologies, traditional defense manufacturing models are no longer sufficient. Military readiness now depends on the ability to scale production rapidly, securely, and cost-effectively without sacrificing quality or speed. From a SIOP (Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning) perspective, defense manufacturers must be able to expand capacity quickly, secure critical supply chains, and respond to shifting demand in real time. In essence, manufacturing capability has become a strategic advantage — and advanced technologies such as AI, automation, robotics, 3D printing, and hyperscale digital manufacturing are reshaping the future of the defense industrial base.
Advanced Military Manufacturing
As geopolitical events have been monopolizing world events, advanced mititary readiness has become essential. In addition, as artificial intelligence has transformed the landscape and cost has become a large factor, old style defnese manufacturing will no longer suffice. Instead, it must support production at scale, security, and speed. Looking at it from a SIOP, also known as Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) or Integrated Business Planning (IBP) standpoint, capacity must rapidly increase to meet demand without breaking the bank. Mititary capacity is national security.
AI-Enabled Defense Manufacturing
Traditional defense manufacturing will not suffice. As the U.S. must scale to meet wartime needs at a reasonable cost when fighting low-cost drones, new technologies and approaches have become a must. Thus, software-defined manufacturing platforms that integrate AI-enabled generative design, 3D printing, and automated assembly for hyperscale manufacturing are gaining traction.
Divergent Technologies has exciting stories to tell wtih its advacements in defense technology. They provide next-generation digital manufacturing; in essence, they digitally engineer, optimize, and manufacture complex structures. For example, cruise missle airframes can go from costing aoround $3 million per unit to under $300,000 per unit with a rapid ramp up of production. They take a missle system turn it into an input file, use generative AI and then trasfrom it from 10+ months into less than 10 days.
Divergent touts its end-to-end capability to design, manufacture and assemble with AI engineering, 3D printing, and automated assembly. One 3D printer can produce 225 missle systems per year. Thus, they are producing 20,000 systems annually with plans to triple their volume by next year as they partner with customers such as Lockheed Martin and RTX. Instead of reshoring, they are building a next generation industrial base.
Military Readiness
Defnese manufacturing must also consider security of the end-to-end supply chain. Exiger protects the defnese supply chain. It provides multi-tier visibility into the entire supply chain and risk. In essence, their AI software unifies supplier, product, part, component, and risk data into a single platform to help customers map and orchestrate compliant and resilient physical and software supply chains. Almost every manufacturer knows and pays attention to their direct suppliers. The issue freqently is their 3rd or 10th tier supplier. That is where supply chain vulnerability hits as it is often these suppliers that have become single sourced over the decades. Exiger has identified 28,000 components and 1400 weapon systems with parts produced in China.
As Exiger CEO Brandon Daniels discussed, China went from controlling the end-to-end supsply chain through labor arbitrage to controlling it through legal practices as automation emerged. The U.S. had 360 major manufacturers that supported the defense industrial base with parts like iron castings, forgings, etc. As China targeted these supply chains, this base has shrunk to 120. However, there is significant hope at the end of the tunnel as defense manufacturers are utilizing autonomous systems, autonomous workflows, automation, robotics, AI, 3D printing and more asdvanced technologies.
Advanced Technologies
The common thread to achieving scale and security with speed is the use of AI and advanced technologies and hyperscale manufacturing. Our most successful clients are aggressively pursuing AI and advanced technologies in their manufacturing environment, with engineering teams to configure and design engineer-to-order (ETO) and configure-to-order (CTO) products, and with ERP systems and advanced technologies such as advanced planning systems (APS). To gain additional insights in how to utilize AI for manufacturing success, download our eBook. Companies that are pursuing AI-enabled manufacturing and utilizing advanced technologies will thrive in the next decade.
If you are interested in reading more on this topic:
Resilience in Supply Chain of Paramount Importance