Sunday, June 15, 2025
Sunday, June 15, 2025
The Pentagon's innovation arm announced today the launch of its anticipated digital marketplace for pre-approved commercial manufacturing companies to partner with commercial defense technology vendors.
The announcement marks one of the first flagship initiatives out of the Defense Innovation Unit’s Blue Manufacturing program, the Blue Manufacturing Marketplace, aimed at establishing “a pre-vetted catalog of trusted advanced manufacturing companies capable of scaling defense technology production,” DIU said.
The initial cohort will identify trusted manufacturing partners across six categories for department needs, according to DIU. That includes parts production for large and small-format metal additives, composite or ceramic additives and automated metal machining and forming. It would also include partners enabling automated and advanced post-processing and 3D-printed tooling.
The announcement comes just under a month after Liz Young McNally, DIU’s deputy director of commercial operations, teased its arrival to attendees at the Reagan National Security Innovation Base Summit in early March.
Young McNally described the process of building the marketplace, in which manufacturing companies would submit applications, DIU would vet them and after the manufacturers were in the system, the marketplace would enable a matching function so defense technology vendors could better find them.
“In the short term,” DIU said in the release, “a successful Marketplace will enable technology companies to seamlessly identify and work with trusted manufacturing entities. Longer-term success will enable the DOD and USG to have a stronger U.S. and partner based supply chain for scaling needed technologies.”
The marketplace is meant to be an evolving solution, DIU and Young McNally have pointed out.
“We’re going to iterate as we go,” she said in early March.
The DIU release echoed that sentiment, saying the organization plans to continue building out other areas in advanced manufacturing in the coming year.