Advanced Manufacturing Leaders from U.S. DoD Tour N91
Important leaders of additive manufacturing and advanced manufacturing initiatives for the U.S. Department of Defense made a visit to Neighborhood 91. This visit was due in part to the DoD funded Resilient Manufacturing Ecosystem (RME) project, which has been coordinated by The Barnes Global Advisors. This tour exhibited the importance of HAMR and the broader Neighborhood towards supporting our nations supply chain and defense capabilities.
HAMR’s CEO Dr. Michael Schmitt and CTO Dr. Jeremy Schreiber show their Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing equipment and some examples of prints with several different materials and DoD-relevant applications.
N91 is the primary location for the DoD’s Industrial Base and Sustainment-funded RME effort. The vision and progress demonstrated at the campus will set the standard for how Additive Manufacturing can facilitate a more robust and resilient domestic supply chain. Through the morning, each tenant demonstrated their capabilities and highlighted the cohesive nature of this new AM focused neighborhood. In that vein, HAMR boasted our unique position of pairing robust R&D capabilities and expertise with production relevant large format CSAM technology. During the tours, HAMR presented the concept, advantages, and strategic use of their new WarpSPEE3d system, including showing several examples of direct support, rapid turn-around times, improved performance, and strategic innovations.
In our last article, Congressman Deluzio visited N91 for a similar tour and discussion. However, a lot can change in just a few weeks and the team proudly reported to our DoD visitors that within a month of becoming operational at the site, HAMR has already provided a demonstration of pairing R&D skills with production capability through a rapid turnaround for a Naval component. Michael and Jeremy relayed that over the course of three days, the team received and calibrated a new material and, using their WarpSPEE3D, printed a design that reduced an 8-part component to a 2-part component. This, and several other examples were exhibited to these stakeholders and demonstrate the rapid pace at which the company is establishing itself in the AM community. Overall, it was clear HAMR and N91’s capabilities are in-line with DoD’s AM interest and position the team to provide significant value to AM development and sustainment activities.