Defense Manufacturing Communities Support Program

The Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program, authorized under Section 846 of the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, is designed to undertake long-term investments in critical skills, facilities, research and development, and small business support in order to strengthen the national security innovation and manufacturing base in designated defense manufacturing communities. The program also seeks to ensure complementarity of those communities so designated with existing defense manufacturing institutes. DoD Manufacturing Institutes are manufacturing ecosystems established since 2014, with common manufacturing and design challenges revolving around specific technologies. So far, the DoD has established eight (8) Manufacturing Institutes. (For complete roster of existing defense manufacturing institutes see link at: https://www.manufacturingusa.com/institutes.) The Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program is designed to recognize communities that demonstrate best practices in attracting and expanding defense manufacturing by bringing together key local stakeholders and using long-term planning that integrates targeted public and private investments across a community’s entire defense industrial ecosystem. Interactions within and between these elements can create assets upon which many firms can draw and that are fundamental in promoting the defense sector’s development but which are otherwise not adequately addressed by the private sector. Thus, well-designed public investment is crucial to building a self-sustaining ecosystem that attracts private investment from new and existing manufacturers and leads to a broad-based increase in manufacturing resilience and regional prosperity across the sector, the region and the nation.