... I think that there are pockets of excellence that have more fully embraced the benefts of advanced manufacturing than others. And so, yes, I would say it is by and large institutionalized, a permanent part of the DoD fabric.
be some nuances with sub safety and airworthiness, but in the macro, I think that’s an area where we could help. The second area where we could help with reciprocity is the certifcation reciprocity for a manufacturing process . If the Navy, for example, makes a part, using this material— a printer in this case—and Navy certifes that this part is Form, Fit, and Function for application, that process should be certifed and therefore acceptable to the other Services so that they don’t have to, again, literally re-engineer that part, as long as they’re following that process. The third thing that we want to do is develop a DoD-ap- proved and -managed products list so that as each Service, approves advanced manufacturing capabilities, 3D printers for use on the network, the other Services don’t have to go and approve that printer for use on the network. I want to develop a centralized dynamic repository that sort of keeps the list. “Hey, I need a thing to do that. Oh, I’ll buy this one because it’s on the list.” At least it’s an option and you can understand that, if you want to buy this uncerti- fed item over here, you’re going to have to get it certifed. Once you get it certifed for the use on the network, it’s added to the list. We’re leading the efort to develop what we’re calling the digital manufacturing exchange or essentially a secure unclassifed network that we will use to transmit technical data packages with enough security so that you know that the fle is accurate. And when you print the data package from the fle, it will be the product that has been certifed. And that will be an important part of continuing to expand our advanced manufacturing capabilities throughout the department, such as building 3D printing farms, and we’re going to need a network to do that. And it’s not all going to be on SIPRNET [Secret Internet Protocol Router Network], but it needs to be more than just your standard unclassifed network. And so, we’re working with a couple of commer- cial partners to help us develop that. We’ve successfully demonstrated a prototype, and we’re going to be demonstrating again in an upcoming exercise. So, we’re going to continue to drive that because, in my opinion, that will be foundational to continued ex- pansion of our advanced manufacturing capability across the department. Q Do we have a cost-beneft metric for artifcial intelli- gence and additive manufacturing? How much money and time are saved when these technologies can be used, particularly at the point of need? A. I don’t know that cost-beneft is necessarily the right metric. To me, there is no cost to sufcient readiness. Are
there potentially cost savings? Maybe. I guess that would depend on the part, on the manufacturing process, how we manufactured it in the past versus the costs associ- ated with buying the machine and the printing material and all of that. So, frankly, I am less concerned about cost savings and more focused on readiness gains associated with advanced manufacturing capabilities. Now I think time is an important component of that. And so, if I could print it where I need it, I can save some time. However, I think sometimes in the department we get enamored with the idea that we can save all this time by printing it forward. Well, we still need to move the stuf. We still must maintain the printer. We must have the post processing equipment, and we need a network to trans- mit the technical data fle. So is that feasible? Yes, but not a panacea. It can also save us time if we could ad- ditively or use advanced manufacturing to manufacture a part for which we have no commercial supplier or where it’s not economically viable for a commercial provider to manufacture something. If we send out an RFP that says, “Hey, I need fve widgets,” nobody wants to make only fve widgets because they’re going to have to invest in the infrastructure. They’re not going to make a proft. Well, we can use the OIB and perhaps advanced manu- facturing to manufacture the widget and so that saves us signifcant time, particularly when it comes to readiness driver parts. There are, again, legacy platforms, lots of things, lots of parts we need. We did not anticipate 30 to 40 years ago that we were going to need parts, nor did we think they were ever going to break because we never thought the planes or aircraft or tanks would still be in service now. So, I think it comes down more to readiness and time, less than cost, although I know that cost is a part of the calculus at the unit level when they’re weighing the cost-beneft of buying that machine, or these parts. Q On the revised sustainment health metrics of a mate- riel availability, which have added new reporting envi- ronments, and established a new metric of cost per day of availability, what results have you seen from that revised instruction. And have you achieved additional insights with a new metric? Again, we’re getting into cost a little bit. A. I don’t want to be flippant and completely discount cost, I mean it is obviously an important consideration. I think we’ve made a lot of progress since the update to DoD Instruction 3110.05 was published and establishing operational availability and materiel availability as super- ordinate metrics for the department, along with cost per day of availability. That has been an evolutionary process
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