Military & Aerospace Manufacturing

Macomb County Tooling Companies Among Majority to Invest $75 Million

One Metro Detroit county is enjoying a boom in manufacturing investment as several machining and tooling suppliers have bet on the future of aerospace by making large contributions. »

Ohio Stamping Company Buys Military Stamper

Joining an ever-growing team of metal stamping companies, Medalist Laserfab, is now part of DMP. »

U.S. Army Faces Difficulty Sourcing Trigger Components to Domestic Tool and Die Shops

How many times have we warned and shouted from the rooftops that our tool and die industry is critical to our national security–in addition to the economy?

Now it appears some of those fears are a reality. This is exactly the type of issue we have tried to warn non-manufacturing citizens and government alike. We can not lose our ability to tool up when needed. However, deceiving OEMs are the biggest perpatrators (more on that in an upcoming article) that have leveled a large portion of our tooling base. It must be stopped. Now. And before it's too late. 

Barbara Bartholomew, Chair of the U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission (USCC) warned that a side product of our growing trade deficit with China is that as more business goes abroad, the technology that we have developed for aircraft, computer chips and other products go with it. She related how the Army recently had a problem buying domestically made triggers for its rifles because the tool-and-die industry is so decimated.

Furthermore, the AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka stated::

The report drives home the point that the Chinese government’s export-led manufacturing strategy is driven by a full range of subsidies, many of which are illegal under both the WTO [World Trade Organization] and our own trade agreements with China. These industrial policies begin with the most important illegal subsidy of all—the continuing substantial undervaluation of the Chinese currency.

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Defense industrial base identifies with general manufacturing, tooling misperceptions

Military Lower Tier Suppliers Experiencing Same Frustrations as Automotive

Military suppliers and the industrial base they are a part of, currently face similar circumstances to those in the Machine, Tool, Die and Mold (MTDM) sectors. Like several previous articles in T&D, the mass misunderstandings about the importance of a viable manufacturing base in the U.S. do not exist in a vacuum.

Many in the MTDM industry are clamoring for a new "manufacturing policy" in America to prevent mistakes of past generations which have eroded crucial functions of manufacturing. What I found interesting is the increasingly louder whispers in Military and Defense supplier-circles debating the potential need for a new "industrial policy" mandated from the Pentagon to stem the rising uncertainty several suppliers–including certain MTDMs.

A recent article from the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) military manufacturing publication, National Defense Magazine, caught my attention because of the fundamental flaws in perception are exactly the same in Defense tooling as it is in Automotive.

The Pentagon is concerned with the sustainability of certain suppliers if they don't have programs to keep them busy. They know there are specific skills and trades in the supply chain that must be salvaged. They just don't know which ones…..

"The engineering and weapons-design work force is a critical asset that the Pentagon can't afford to lose, but nobody really has defined what specific skills within that work force are the essential ones to keep," according to Gerald Abbott, professor emeritus at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Two elephants-in-the-rooms in MTDM for quite some time have been the aging workforce and ever-widening gap in the skilled trades’ labor pool. Government and Military suppliers can attest to that.

"The defense industrial base also is being undermined by a U.S. culture where the accepted mantra is that everyone needs a college education while nothing is being done to promote skills such as welding and machining, which take up to eight years to master. We shouldn't assume that every skill is critical to this industry requires a college degree," Abbott stated. He went on to say that the most effective way for the Defense Department to keep its skilled trades workers is via 'hand-picked prototyping programs', which are essentially "small teams of designers and engineers would build small numbers of airplanes, ships or tanks"–despite being expensive.

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Manufacturing Group Pushes for Bill Reform to Support Tooling

I'm not sure the concept necessarily puts my mind at ease if this is what it takes to buoy our manufacturing base. However, the world we live in is full of nuts.

A new bill has passed through the Senate and if all goes well could be signed by president Obama soon. A group of tooling stakeholders is pushing the U.S. House of Representatives for reforms to the Defense Production Act (DPA).

"The DPA is a 60-year-old program that gives the President broad power a) to require businesses to sign contracts or fulfill orders deemed necessary for national defense; b) to establish and enforce means of allocating materials, services, and facilities for national defense; and c) to control the civilian economy so that scarce and/or critical materials are available for national defense purpose."

Our friends over at Kinetic Die Casting have a post with further details about the Defense Production Act.

Die casting video review (courtesy of SME)

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