Agile Manufacturing for Advanced Armaments Systems: Revitalizing the Army's Manufacturing

DMC 2024 Abstracts

DMC 2024 - Agile Manufacturing for Advanced Armaments Systems: Revitalizing the US Army's Armaments Manufacturing Ecosystem for Distributed Operations
(Authors – A. D’Onofrio, T. Swaszek, J. Zunino, K. Blecker, D. Sabanosh, J. Mercurio)

The US Army Armaments Center is leading a multifunctional team to advance manufacturing systems. This distributed approach integrates agile manufacturing principles and advanced digital technologies to modernize advanced munition systems, enhance lethality, range, and readiness, while fostering a robust manufacturing ecosystem for diverse Army stakeholder needs. The initiative will introduce agile manufacturing cells that can quickly adapt to evolving production and manufacturing objectives. These capabilities facilitate the production of munitions on agile production lines that can switch between families of munitions, promoting "distributed manufacturing models". This decentralized approach ensures scalability, resilience, and flexibility to maintain readiness levels and rapidly respond to threats.
This approach emphasizes collaboration among industry, academia, and military, resulting in a dynamic manufacturing environment. Additionally, the incorporation of emerging technologies such as machine learning, additive manufacturing, advanced electronics, and advanced materials will optimize production, reduces resource usage, and accelerate development of armaments systems. The Agile strategy will establish manufacturing capabilities that are scalable, integrate resources, and rapidly respond to Warfighter needs. By enhancing Army capabilities, facilities, and expertise in printed electronics, energetics, materials, and sensors, it fosters a continuous flow of design, analysis, and manufacturing throughout the system life cycle.
Methods such as tele-manufacturing, virtual inspection, remote validation, etc. establish virtual control for engineering. This support combines physical manufacturing with digital manufacturing to ensure seamless integration. This integration enables direct digital manufacturing and advanced manufacturing flexibility. The development of a modular architecture for scalable agile pilot lines ensures product flexibility and improves rapid response capabilities to engineering changes as well as variabilities within the supply chain.