DoD funds target manufacturing’s digital future

The Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII) has secured a $10 million Department of Defense (DoD) award to lead the digital future of manufacturing.

Officials said the agreement includes  an option of $20 million more over the upcoming five years and is part of a new multi-year follow-on agreement with a ceiling of $60 million of government funding.

“The Department of Defense wants to reaffirm our strategic relationship with the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute,” Robert Gold, director, Technology & Manufacturing Industrial Base, said. “We are working together to develop cutting-edge digital technology and investing in a robust research and development infrastructure to promote global competitiveness on the part of U.S. manufacturers.”

DoD officials said the DMDII partnership is part of an effort to reform the department for greater performance and affordability in support of the National Defense Strategy.

“American manufacturing must remain competitive since it underpins national and economic security,” Tracy Frost, the Pentagon’s director of the DoD Manufacturing Institutes and its Manufacturing Technology program, said.

The Institute’s mission is to enable American manufacturers to make every part better than the last. That requires production lines to be embedded with software and sensors that connect to a network. Further, the ability of manufacturing equipment to send and receive data in real time allows the equipment to improve the manufacturing processes.