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Introduction
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted the Workshop on Logistics and Manufacturing Under Attack as part of a workshop series on Defense Materials, Manufacturing, and Infrastructure (DMMI). The DMMI Standing Committee organizes events exploring issues regarding materials, manufacturing, and infrastructural activities relevant to military personnel, platforms, and facilities, as well as the manufacturing and industrial base for both the military and commercial sector (see Appendix A, Statement of Task). Addressing these issues is important to maintaining U.S. technological superiority; creating energy-efficient, high-performance, and sustainable platforms; ensuring a safe, healthy, and energy-efficient infrastructure; securing the safety of facilities and ports; and supporting the processes that provide our defense materials, parts, and products. Although the workshops assess these issues through a defense lens, informed approaches in these areas will also support the nation’s broader goals related to technological leadership, safety, infrastructure, and a robust manufacturing sector.
The workshop was held online June 2–4, 2021 (see Appendix B, Workshop Agenda). The event brought together approximately 120 speakers and attendees representing materials science, engineering, logistics, and manufacturing experts from industry, academia, and government agencies. Haydn Wadley, University of Virginia, DMMI committee chair, and Angus Kingon, Brown University, who served as workshop chair, gave the opening remarks.
The workshop sought to bring together experts from various fields to explore the ability to build, maintain, and repair mission-critical structures and equipment
in challenging operational environments that have become increasingly vulnerable to weather effects, supply chain disruptions, and attacks. Rather than developing formal recommendations, the purpose of the workshop was to reveal areas of opportunity and military applications in this field while considering challenges and barriers to realizing these opportunities. The main topics were large-scale concrete additive manufacturing, potential innovations in supply chain and systems logistics, and manufacturing in space, with a special emphasis on learning from industry experience.
The workshop was unclassified and open to the public. This publication offers a condensed summary of the proceedings based on recordings, slides, and transcripts from the workshop.
