Published September 30, the Manufacturing Technology Program Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2026–2031 sets out how the department intends to address those weaknesses through advanced manufacturing. It prioritizes more resilient production, faster adoption of new manufacturing processes and a broader pool of suppliers capable of supporting military requirements.
“Today, we lack the latent capacity to rapidly scale production of key systems and munitions in a crisis,” the strategy states. Castings, forgings and microelectronics are among the industries it identifies as single points of failure, both within the United States and overseas.
Production constraints carry a deterrence cost
The department’s assessment challenges the assumption that American industry can quickly expand output when military demand rises. It says just-in-time logistics, the offshoring of critical production and consolidation have created a fragile industrial system with insufficient reserve capacity.
“Our inability to surge production is a known vulnerability that invites aggression, as adversaries calculate that we cannot sustain a high-intensity conflict,” the document says. The warning places manufacturing capacity alongside military capability as a factor in the department’s assessment of deterrence.
The strategy also describes a defense industrial base that is smaller, less competitive and slower to respond than national security requirements demand. Complex contracting processes discourage commercial innovators from entering the market, concentrating the department’s dependence on a limited number of suppliers.
High costs and lengthy development cycles compound those problems, according to the document. It warns that systems can take decades to reach service, leaving their underlying technologies approaching obsolescence by the time they are fielded.
Manufacturing across more locations
The proposed response centers on advanced manufacturing that combines computing, automation and production data to improve fabrication and repair. Additive manufacturing and robotics would allow components to be produced at multiple certified facilities, reducing dependence on individual factories or foundries.
Under the model described in the strategy, an engineer or item manager could securely send a component’s digital design to certified production equipment across the country or at forward-deployed locations. The department presents this approach as a means of overcoming geographic constraints and increasing supply-chain resilience.
Repairs closer to the user form another part of the approach. The strategy identifies cold spray, a solid-state deposition process, as a technology for rapidly repairing and enhancing critical equipment at the point of need.
For aging weapons systems, the Defense Logistics Agency’s manufacturing program focuses on supply problems that can arise when original suppliers no longer exist. Its investments include reverse engineering, additive manufacturing for spare parts and modernization of technical data.
Qualification remains a barrier
The department acknowledges that new production methods must be qualified before they can reliably support military systems. It identifies a limited understanding of how manufacturing variables affect component performance as a major source of cost and delay.
A printer’s laser power or a casting’s cooling rate can influence the quality and reliability of the finished part. Without a sufficiently clear understanding of those relationships, even minor changes can trigger extensive physical testing.
The strategy proposes collecting and analyzing production data through real-time monitoring and advanced inspection. A continuous digital record would link process conditions to product performance, supporting qualification through simulation and targeted testing.
Digital engineering would also allow manufacturers to evaluate design options before producing physical components. Combined with automated tooling and fabrication, the department argues that these methods can substantially shorten development timelines.
Smaller suppliers face a financing impasse
The strategy gives particular attention to small and medium-sized manufacturers whose technologies struggle to progress from prototype to production. It describes a financing impasse in which investors await a firm customer commitment while defense customers await a mature, proven product.
That gap can force businesses to abandon promising technologies or sell to larger companies, reducing competition. ManTech proposes funding pilot-scale demonstrations to establish whether manufacturing processes work at scale and reduce the uncertainty that discourages private investment.
Digital design and certified manufacturing equipment are also intended to lower the cost of entering the defense market. The document argues that smaller firms should be able to compete on their technical capabilities without first building large production facilities.
From research to factory adoption
The strategy calls for manufacturing research to be more closely aligned with acquisition requirements and industrial investment programs. Projects would identify production weaknesses early and establish a clear route for successful technologies to reach factory use.
Manufacturing readiness assessments and manufacturing maturity plans would help guide those decisions. Partnerships with programs responsible for scaling and sustainment would support wider adoption, while recurring coordination with industrial investment programs would target critical production and supply-chain gaps.
Workforce shortages remain a separate constraint on expanding capacity, even where new equipment and processes are available. The department’s manufacturing innovation institutes would support recruitment, retention and training, including the skills needed to operate and maintain advanced manufacturing systems.
The plan does not announce a new funding total or numerical targets for increasing weapons and munitions production. It sets out the department’s approach to a stated strategic weakness: an industrial base without sufficient capacity to rapidly meet wartime demand.
