Collaborative Efforts to Further Advance Manufacturing Innovation Within the Marine Corps

Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with the United States Marine Corps, have fostered a symbiotic relationship centered around advanced manufacturing innovation. Through a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA), Harrisburg University opens its doors to the Marine Corps with the goal of being a supportive asset in state-of-the-art technology education as well as a resource to improve warfighter readiness by sharing resources and capabilities. The Marine Corps has addressed a gap in current manufacturing capabilities compared to state-of-the-art practices and technologies. This gap creates a bottleneck for addressing real time problems faced by soldiers due to aging equipment and ever-changing risks presented by our advisories. Academic institutions with an altruistic approach toward innovation such as Harrisburg University provide the perfect environment to address these gaps and provide the means to impactful solutions. In this presentation we will discuss prior and ongoing efforts to address gaps in warfighter readiness through the deployment of advanced manufacturing techniques and practices. The efforts described in this presentation are the results of work done with two of the three Marine Corps Expeditionary Manufacturing units. The work described includes designing components from concept, reengineering of components with high failure rates, reverse engineering strategies, material selection, as well as the additive, subtractive, and hybrid manufacturing methods used to manufacture the end use solutions. The end goal of this paper is to showcase several examples of meaningful use cases for advanced manufacturing within the defense sector and illustrate a path forward for future progress.