DIU launches Blue Manufacturing program to vet advanced manufacturing companies

WASHINGTON — In an effort to quickly produce new systems while still being wary of adversarial parts, the Defense Innovation Unit has announced a new program to approve companies that produce advanced manufacturing technologies. 

Under the new program, called Blue Manufacturing, the DIU will vet manufacturing companies before they’re cleared to work with the Defense Department and its industry partners, Doug Beck, the director of DIU said Thursday.  

“What we’re doing now is essentially creating a program that pre-vets for quality, security [and] adversarial capital, so we can make that introduction and actually build the bridge to help both [the hardware and software sides] to scale,” Beck said Thursday at a National Defense Industrial Association’s Conference.

Blue Manufacturing will include companies that do 3D printing, digital engineering and “everything in between,” Beck said.

He added that the new program will help small commercial companies, who often have trouble reaching the high production scaling the DoD requires, as they’ll have access to a list of manufacturers capable of advanced technologies that they can rely on to help diminish some of the common challenges they face. 

“These guys need these guys to scale, and these guys can help us scale with those guys. Doing that will help us really build the defense industrial base in a new way and do it right now,” Beck said. 

The DIU modeled the Blue Manufacturing program after its Blue UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) program. Blue UAS, born in 2020, creates an approved list of commercial drone providers that can be used by the DoD, ensuring safeguards that parts aren’t from adversaries like China, Iran, Russia, North Korea and Venezuela, Blue UAS project lead Trent Emeneker, previously told Breaking Defense. 

It’s unclear if the Blue Manufacturing program will do the same, but Blue UAS has a yearly refresh where companies that were previously on the list and companies wishing to enter the list compete for a spot, ensuring that “the marketplace derives the best outcome,” Emeneker previously said. 

But the Blue Manufacturing effort perhaps more closely hues to the Blue UAS Framework program after the Blue UAS program which created a similar list of drone accessories, capabilities and subcomponents. The point of the overall effort is to make sure that foreign countries — specifically China — are not able to sneak parts into DoD equipment.