Foundry artisans fill a mold to manufacture cast parts at Stainless Foundry and Engineering in Wisconsin, March 31, 1011. Casting work is important to the DOD, particularly to the Navy. Developing a workforce capable of the skills needed for casting and forging is something the Defense Department is working on as a way to strengthen the defense industrial base. Photo credit: Nutan Chada, Defense Logistics Agency.

DOD lays out plan to implement National Defense Industrial Strategy
October 29, 2024--In January the Defense Department released the National Defense Industrial Strategy, a first-of-its kind roadmap detailing priorities for how the department would strengthen the defense industrial base — the collection of private sector companies of all sizes responsible for building military hardware and weapons systems.
This week, the department released the National Defense Industrial Strategy Implementation Plan, or NDIS-IP. The plan provides the details for how the goals set forth in the NDIS-IP can be achieved and mitigate risks to the department in the near, medium and long term.
"The defense industrial base serves a larger purpose than any single action or investment dollar," said Laura Taylor-Kale, the assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy. "Progress and acceleration happen in months and years. The implementation plan for the National Defense Industrial Strategy is a roadmap for integrating our priorities under leadership-driven initiatives. Each implementation initiative assigns primary responsibility, estimated resources, key metrics and risks."
Within the NDIS implementation plan are six initiatives meant to incentivize the development of a modernized, resilient defense industrial ecosystem that has resilient supply chains, a ready workforce, and which leverages, as appropriate, the department's flexible acquisition policies and promotes economic deterrence for the United States, its allies and partners.

The six initiatives in the NDIS-IP include:
--The Indo-Pacific deterrence initiative, with a long-term focus on lines of effort related to munitions, missiles and submarine production.
--The production and supply chains initiative, with a concentration on, among other things, onshoring defense-critical production capabilities, moving away from adversarial sources of capital, a deeper analysis of supply chain vulnerabilities, enhanced industrial cyber security and critical materials stockpiling.
--The allied and partner industrial collaboration initiative, which aims to further develop allied cooperation, with an emphasis on the AUKUS trilateral partnership, which comprises Australia, the United Kingdom and the United State, an expanded interest in weapons systems coproduction with partners and allies, and international industrial collaboration.
--The capabilities and infrastructure modernization initiative, which involves modernizing the nuclear industrial base, organic industrial base and DOD's maintenance, repair and overhaul and upgrade capacity.
--The new capabilities using flexible pathways initiatives, where the department aims to, among other things, enhance the progress of the Replicator Initiative though a variety of various projects, studies and white papers; and to better deploy its current acquisition authorities.
--The intellectual property and data analysis initiative, which focuses on ensuring effective use of resources throughout a program life cycle by fully integrating intellectual property planning into acquisition and product support strategies.

"The six implementation initiatives include specific desired outcomes and provide the potential risks associated with inaction," said Taylor-Kale. "A key focus of implementation is championing initiatives that are cross-cutting and not the sole responsibility of any one military service or component within the Department of Defense."

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