The recent U.S. strikes against Iran have shown that winning a war is only half the challenge – rebuilding the weapons used to fight is the other. As reported by PBS NewsHour, replenishing key U.S. stockpiles of Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot interceptors, and THAAD interceptors could take years, highlighting the urgent need to expand America’s manufacturing capacity and strengthen the defense industrial base.
The war in Ukraine has also illustrated that a nation’s ability to quickly iterate, develop, and manufacture advanced, attritable, unmanned weapons systems can shift the balance of war. This is one of the reasons why Ukraine has managed not only to hold off a superior foe but also to take the fight to them – launching successful attacks into Russian territory.
Against this mounting pressure to rebuild and innovate more quickly than adversaries can adapt, Lockheed Martin and GM Defense have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that brings together America’s largest defense contractor with one of the nation’s largest manufacturing companies. Combining Lockheed Martin’s defense production expertise with GM Defense’s commercial-scale engineering, manufacturing, digital development, and supply chain capabilities, this MOU is intended to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base and accelerate delivery of critical military capabilities.
We recently sat down with Dr. Bruce Brown, Vice President of Strategy for GM Defense, to discuss what this partnership means for the future of U.S. defense manufacturing and production.
GovDesignHub (GDH): What does this new collaboration look to achieve for the DoW? Why are GM Defense and Lockheed Martin entering this MOU? What is the desired result?
Dr. Bruce Brown: The collaboration is intended to help strengthen America’s manufacturing and defense-industrial base by accelerating delivery of critical capabilities, improving supply chain resilience, and expanding production capacity through commercial manufacturing expertise and infrastructure. It is also designed to help get better tools into the hands of service members faster and at a lower cost.
GM Defense and Lockheed Martin are entering into this MOU because they see an opportunity to pair complementary capabilities to support national security and strengthen American manufacturing. The desired result is to establish a teaming relationship, identify specific projects in the coming weeks, and create a path for faster, more efficient delivery of mission-critical capabilities while maintaining required quality, performance, and reliability standards.
This MOU pairs Lockheed Martin’s defense production expertise with GM Defense’s commercial-scale engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and digital development strengths to help the U.S. Department of War (DoW) produce critical capabilities faster, more efficiently, and at greater scale.
GDH: What do these two companies bring to the table? What unique capabilities and expertise are GM Defense and Lockheed Martin bringing to this collaboration, respectively?
Dr. Bruce Brown: Lockheed Martin brings defense production expertise and deep defense and aerospace experience. GM Defense brings high-rate commercial manufacturing, engineering, supply chain management, and the ability to adapt commercial technology quickly and cost-effectively for defense use.
“The need is being driven by a drive to field capabilities faster, at lower cost, and with more manufacturing resilience.” —Dr. Bruce Brown
GM’s differentiated areas of support include digital design, virtual testing, lightweight materials, and high-precision fabrication.
GDH: The official announcement claims that this MOU will help address the DoW’s “growing demand for greater production capacity, supply chain resilience and manufacturing agility across the defense sector.” What is driving this need? How are changes and advances in modern warfare driving this requirement?
Dr. Bruce Brown: The need is being driven by a drive to field capabilities faster, at lower cost, and with more manufacturing resilience. The central challenge is not just developing advanced systems, but producing them at speed and scale without sacrificing mission-critical quality and reliability.
In practice, that means stronger supply chains, more domestic production capacity, and faster paths from design to fielding.
GDH: We’ve seen a massive push across the DoW to adopt and embrace new advanced and innovative manufacturing capabilities – including advanced additive and subtractive manufacturing capabilities. What experience and capabilities do GM Defense and Lockheed Martin have in advanced manufacturing? How can they bring these to bear for the DoW, and what benefits will they deliver?
Dr. Bruce Brown: GM Defense’s U.S. Research and Development (R&D) and product development network combines advanced labs, virtual simulation, rapid prototyping, additive manufacturing, and proving-ground validation to speed development, improve safety, reduce cost, and translate ideas into production-ready solutions.
“Together, the two companies can help improve component availability, accelerate production readiness, apply proven commercial manufacturing approaches to defense production, and increase capacity.” —Dr. Bruce Brown
GM Defense has used additive manufacturing for more than 30 years across design, product, and materials engineering, manufacturing, and after-sales. Lockheed Martin brings defense production expertise and advanced mission and aerospace know-how.
Together, the two companies can help improve component availability, accelerate production readiness, apply proven commercial manufacturing approaches to defense production, and increase capacity while maintaining required quality and reliability.
GDH: We’ve also seen an increased demand and interest in digital twins for military weapons systems and platforms. Are GM Defense and Lockheed Martin embracing a digital approach to engineering that leverages these types of technologies? Are GM Defense and Lockheed Martin embracing a digital approach to engineering that leverages digital twins and similar technologies?
Dr. Bruce Brown: Yes, GM Defense is clearly using a digital-first engineering approach that includes virtual development, hardware-in-the-loop and driver-in-the-loop simulation, and extensive virtual testing before physical builds.
Even without using the term directly, that approach is consistent with digital-twin workflows.
GDH: Why are these digital engineering and digital twin capabilities in demand from the DoW? What benefits do they bring to the system design, development, testing, and evaluation process?
Dr. Bruce Brown: These capabilities help teams get to production-ready systems faster, with higher quality, lower prototype spending, earlier issue identification, and stronger performance validation before physical builds are required.
“Partnerships like this can help attract talent by connecting defense manufacturing to advanced commercial technologies such as autonomy, electrification, robotics, software, advanced batteries, and digitally enabled manufacturing.” —Dr. Bruce Brown
They also help surface ergonomics and safety issues earlier, shorten development cycles, and reduce cost and time in the product-development process.
GDH: As advanced manufacturing technologies become more prevalent, what new workforce skills will be most important for the future defense industrial base? How can partnerships like this help attract new talent into defense manufacturing careers?
Dr. Bruce Brown: The most important skills are likely to include digital design, virtual testing, additive manufacturing, high-precision fabrication, rapid prototyping, integrated engineering, and advanced manufacturing operations.
Partnerships like this can help attract talent by connecting defense manufacturing to advanced commercial technologies such as autonomy, electrification, robotics, software, advanced batteries, and digitally enabled manufacturing. That helps position defense work as advanced, innovative, and nationally consequential.
Featured image courtesy of DIVIDS, depicting Scranton Army Ammunition Plant employees performing inspections.
