The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has set up its first ‘framework for additive manufacturing’ (AdM), awarding industry contracts to five companies, the MoD’s Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) organisation announced on 6 April 2023.
The initiative is designed to take “the first steps in exploring the issues which prevent us and our industry partners from using AdM, more commonly known as 3D printing, to its best effect”, DE&S stated in a press release.
AMFG, Babcock, NP Aerospace, RBSL and Thales are the five companies selected to tackle the first phase of this work, which will be focused on fitting 11 non-safety-critical metallic parts onto in-service platforms.
The companies will work closely with the MoD as well as with other industry organisations to scale up the use of AdM parts, stated DE&S, and in doing so open the doors to greater innovation in manufacturing.
As the framework progresses the MoD will work with industry on tasks of increasing complexity in sourcing parts for in-service platforms through AdM and exploring how the technology could be better exploited.
The UK’s Defence Support (DefSp) organisation is leading the project in close collaboration with DE&S. The contracts were awarded by DE&S’ Future Capability Group (FCG) on behalf of DefSp.
Given that a number of UK defence prime contractors have often hailed their introduction of additive manufacturing before now, it is perhaps surprising that the UK MoD has felt it needs to kickstart an initiative to further the technology.
However, as Charlotte Robinson, Head of the UK’s Defence Support Innovation Team, was quoted as saying in the DE&S press release, “Through awarding these contracts we seek to unlock the issues which prevent us and our industry partners from using additive manufacturing to best effect. This includes tackling challenges such as upscaling its use, certifying additively manufactured parts for use on our platform systems and redesigning and manufacturing parts which are no longer available.
“More broadly, we are looking at how to open the doors to manufacturing innovation by streamlining the end-to-end process,” Robinson added. “We recognise that this is a joint effort, not just between our organisation and DE&S, but importantly with our industry partners, who hold many of the levers to enable change. We must work with them if we are to see the changes that all sides want and need. As a result, we have established a collaborative governance framework that runs alongside the Spirals to provide support and challenge to all involved.”
Colonel Dan Anders-Brown, the AdM lead at the FCG, was quoted as saying, “The industrial manufacturing base of our nation is critical to the success of future military operations and additive manufacturing plays an increasingly crucial role in defence, boosting availability of parts for front line commands globally.
“This is a vitally important area for our Armed Forces and one which has the potential to transform how we run defence logistics,” the colonel added.
Peter Felstead
