Carderock MASS Team Takes Rapid Manufacturing to the Warfighter at Valiant Shield 26

Carderock MASS Team Takes Rapid Manufacturing to the Warfighter at Valiant Shield 26

By Alisha Tyer, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division Public Affairs

Four weeks after arriving in Okinawa, Japan, engineers from Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division headed home, leaving Marines with the equipment, tools and training to continue manufacturing two Foam Raiding Craft (FRC) platforms on their own.

During exercise Valiant Shield 26, Carderock's Manufacturing Attritable Systems at Scale (MASS) team worked alongside Marines with Intermediate Repair Company, 3rd Maintenance Battalion, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, to establish a manufacturing lab and train Marines to use it. Together, they manufactured the 3- and 7-meter FRCs before demonstrating the platforms' manned and unmanned capabilities at White Beach, Okinawa.

The "leave-behind capability," as MASS team lead Zach Heinkel described it, marked a significant step for the team. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the MASS effort has spent several years developing rapidly manufacturable maritime platforms at Carderock. Previous Carderock coverage followed the team as it developed and demonstrated its manufacturing approach and tested its platforms on the water. At Valiant Shield, Carderock began transferring the manufacturing process to the Marines who could ultimately use it.

"I think that's the part that makes us pretty unique, where we're kind of bridging that gap between the operational part and the manufacturing," Heinkel said. "I think one of the best things we can do is provide capabilities directly into the hands of the warfighter."

The demonstration was part of Resilient Advanced Manufacturing for Contested Environments, or RAMFORCE, which brought Marines together with government laboratories and industry during Valiant Shield 26 to explore advanced manufacturing closer to the point of need, according to Marine Corps coverage of the exercise.

Heinkel described the larger MASS concept through a different kind of manufacturing operation: a kitchen.

"We're trying to give them the kitchen, train them how to be chefs, and then we continuously upgrade and update that recipe book," he said.

In Heinkel's analogy, the FRC-3 and FRC-7 are two of the "recipes" the manufacturing suite can produce. The team can continue developing designs based on what warfighters need.

"The FRC-7, the FRC-3, those are example items of just a little taste of what we can do with this manufacturing suite," Heinkel said. "But really, the door is open and we can design specifically to their needs."

During the first two weeks of the exercise, Carderock engineers established the lab and trained Marines to operate the manufacturing equipment while they produced components for the platforms. The following two weeks focused on manufacturing the FRC-3 and FRC-7, followed by training at White Beach on how to operate the platforms.

The four-week exercise did not include training Marines on the design process, though Heinkel said design considerations could become part of future training. He said the Marines left the training confident in their ability to manufacture the platforms they had learned to build without Carderock engineers alongside them.

The equipment, tools and materials provided for Valiant Shield also remained with the Marines, allowing them to continue manufacturing after Carderock returned home.

The exchange gave Carderock engineers an opportunity to learn directly from the people using both the manufacturing process and the platforms it produced.

"Every single time we do it, we learn a lot from it," Heinkel said. "Especially when we're doing this side by side with the Marines, we not only learn from our engineering perspective, but from the end-user perspective."

Some parts of the manufacturing process are messy and labor-intensive. Heinkel said the team had wondered how Marines would respond when they moved beyond just seeing the finished platforms and began working directly with the materials and processes required to produce them, such as applying spray foam during construction.

"They loved it," he said. "I was surprised."

The Marines' response reinforced Heinkel's confidence in their ability to take greater ownership of the capability. He described them as smart, capable and enthusiastic about the work, and said he expects that, with additional training, Marines could eventually make some modifications to the platform designs themselves.

For Heinkel, giving warfighters greater ability to produce what they need is also personal. An Air Force veteran, he has experienced deployments where key components needed to accomplish a mission were not immediately available.

"I know what that's like when you're missing key components that you need to do your mission," he said. "It puts the warfighter into these situations that are sometimes scary. If you don't have that safety net, it's not a good feeling, and you really want to accomplish that mission, but you don't have the things you need."

That experience has followed Heinkel into his work at Carderock, where he was recently promoted to attritable manufacturing technical area lead.

"I want to enable the warfighter to be able to quickly manufacture these things as they need them rather than wait on these extremely long lead-time items," Heinkel said. "The typical supply chains and procurement routes, they just don't cut it in the time of war when you need things immediately."

Heinkel said the MASS team plans to continue providing technical support and additional training as the Marines gain experience manufacturing the platforms on their own. What comes next will also be informed by what the Marines need.

"What would you like next?" Heinkel recalled asking them. "What would you want to see built using this manufacturing suite?"