The National Defense Industrial Association is working with its members to collect and anonymize their data to contribute to the Pentagon's ongoing industrial base review.
Following an executive order issued by President Trump in July, the Pentagon is evaluating the industrial base through a new assessment. The review is slated to result in a report, due in April, that includes recommendations.
Hawk Carlisle, the chief executive of NDIA, told Inside Defense last week the industry group is working with the Pentagon's manufacturing and industrial base policy office, which is spearheading the review.
In October, the Pentagon announced Eric Chewning has been named deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy.
"Eric Chewning and DOD [have] asked us to help because our membership is so large," Carlisle said in an interview at NDIA's Arlington, VA, headquarters. "We have divisions that really delve into the nth level of detail within their core mission area."
For instance, he said NDIA's trusted microelectronics group recently produced a paper on microelectronics capabilities that DOD is using as part of its industrial base assessment.
Carlisle said NDIA has already met with Jerry McGinn, who was acting director of the MIBP office before Chewning took over, and with the White House group overseeing the industrial base review.
He said NDIA would be able to help coordinate data from companies concerned about handing over sensitive information.
"Companies are reluctant to give information to the government. There's proprietary information," Carlisle said. "Our primary job will be working with industry, gathering all that information, collating it, putting it together and washing it a little bit and then handing it to DOD."
He said NDIA is working to anonymize the information and provide it "to DOD in a format and way that still protects our membership [and] that gets the adequate level of information that the DOD needs."
Carlisle said he's hopeful the review leads to insights on how to address fragile parts of the industrial base. "We've got to understand where our challenges are and start addressing the strategy to deal with them," he said.
He said NDIA's member companies are eager to participate.
If there's "a bottleneck that potentially needs to be addressed, then our membership wants to be part of the solution," Carlisle said. "Now, the converse to that is if there's excess capacity or excess capability.
"It's not as good," he continued. "But, again, our members are excited to some extent because if we can identify it, then they can start looking at how they would diversify or move out of that. It gives them some insight."