# Additive manufacturing becoming key logistics enabler 

/ Published April 12, 2023
FORT BELVOIR, Va., 
Additive manufacturing will be key to troops’ ability to fight and win wars in the near future, the Defense Logistics Agency’s current operations director told military representatives during a Joint Additive Manufacturing Acceptability III Qualification Workshop March 28 in Arlington, Virginia.

Patrick Kelleher gave two reasons for accelerating additive manufacturing capabilities around the world, the first being the need to quickly resupply critical parts to deployed troops with battle-damaged equipment.

“I also think you need to think of it from a continental United States perspective,” he said. “When we think about warfighting at the Defense Logistics Agency and the Department of Defense, it’s in the context of contested logistics – the ability of the adversary to deny or degrade our ability to perform logistics,” he said.

Leaders “fully expect” the continental U.S. to someday become a contested environment where enemies disrupt the ability to move material and supplies throughout the country, Kelleher continued.

“Therefore, if you can decentralize that capability and have additive manufacturing as something that augments conventional manufacturing, you can perhaps offset the degree to which an adversary can influence or degrade our ability to project power overseas,” he said.

The services and DLA have developed a framework for identifying parts for additive manufacturing and agreed on the designing, manufacturing and testing data needed to accelerate acceptance of DLA-managed items that are additively manufactured into the supply chain. The JAMA III workshop was an opportunity for military and DLA officials to explore commercial integration while maintaining quality standards.

Kelleher cautioned the group from thinking additively and conventionally manufactured parts need different control measures or processes. Both are produced to meet military specifications and undergo first-article testing.

“They’re both tested to ensure they meet the requirement independent of how or where they’re manufactured,” he said. “I should not care as a user whether my widget was manufactured here or there, additively or subtractively, as long as my widget works and does what I need it to do when I put it in my artillery piece.”

Determining how the department adopts widespread additive manufacturing is also more important at this stage than pinpointing where, Kelleher added, noting that a balance must be struck between effectiveness and efficiency.

“Efficiency doesn’t win wars, effectiveness does. So as we think about applying additive manufacturing to certain parts, it’s OK if it costs more if it’s more effective,” he continued. “Ultimately, we want to figure out how to bring the cost down, but I wouldn’t at the outset disregard a course of action simply because in the near term additive manufacturing is more expensive if it means you can accelerate the capability.”

The greater flexibility the U.S. has in developing and sharing the technical data required to additively manufacture parts, the better it can also empower partners to create parts needed around the world whether throughout conventional or additive manufacturing.

Although additive manufacturing is relatively new to DOD, Kelleher said it’s well-established commercially. GE is already flying flight-critical parts, and adversaries are universally ahead in the technology as well as fields like hypersonics and artificial intelligence.

“We are behind and we need to move faster,” he said. “We need to catch up to our adversaries and do what we can to accelerate the incorporation of additive manufacturing in a widespread way.”

DLA’s four-pronged role in AM includes defining processes to integrate AM into the supply chain and setting standards for safely handling and distributing raw materials. The agency’s second focus area is developing processes for sharing supplier-generated technical data across the department and documenting and maintaining a list of sources that have successfully delivered AM parts and raw materials. 

Developing a DOD framework for sharing common technical data requirements and acceptance criteria is the third part of DLA’s AM efforts, followed by the responsibility to integrate AM into the department’s IT architecture.