Manufacturing - A National Defense Issue

Later this month, the 2010 Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC 2010)will be held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. I wish I could attend this one, and not only because of its venue. I've had a chance to peruse a number of the abstracts already posted on line. There are several sessions scheduled on materials manufacturing, and two papers in particular whetted my appetite for more information. These concerned developments in casting techniques for Aluminum alloys, which can be a big deal if the techniques discussed live up to their promise. Casting Aluminum alloys has always presented technical challenges, and getting a casting process that is more economical to produce parts that have the equivalent properties of more expensive forgings will help make our products more competitive in the marketplace.

The overriding issue however, relates to the development and maintenance of manufacturing industries within the United States. While some factory jobs will be made available as a result of developments in manufacturing technology, it's far more important to the country that the capability to make things be not only preserved, but put to use on a regular basis. We go through this sort of re-discovery every so often, when we figure out that the rest of the world can function quite nicely without us, and that we can't always do the same.

Industries ranging from textiles to nuclear power plants are dependent in large measure on the manufacturing capabilities that now reside offshore, and this makes the country vulnerable to the influence of others, and not always to our benefit. I'm not one of those who would have us isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, but its critical to our well being and national security that we have the ability to make what we need to grow, prosper and defend ourselves if necessary.

Many of the projects described were funded wholly or in part by the Federal Government, and have helped grow companies and university research capabilities that we need to maintain if we're to keep ourselves at the forefront of technology. Developments such as those to be presented at DMC 2010 will go a long way toward ensuring our future well-being, in addition to providing jobs and career opportunities for future generations.