Over the past twelve months, NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) has organized an Additive Manufacturing Community of Interest (AM COI) to recognize, understand, and address the complexities of embracing Additive Manufacturing (AM) within NATO. The goal is enabling Expeditionary Digital Manufacturing for Military Alliances.Troika has worked with other AM COI members to help recognize the impact of AM across the NATO spectrum, including operations, Nations/Partners, and technology adoption.Military services across the globe are increasingly interested in the suitability of Digital Manufacturing and specifically AM to augment part stockpiles for future deployed operations. NATO is no exception, and they also share an increasing awareness of the benefits AM brings to the combat theater.
NATO faces unique challenges that are highly complex. Troika is working with the AM COI to understand obstacles and offer visionary and workable solutions. The efforts over the past twelve months are now ready to be tested and demonstrated.
Within NATO, several Nations have decided to collaborate on enabling deployable digital manufacturing capabilities that can support multinational demand. Specifically, Norway, USA, and NATO have planned a series of experiments in 2018 to identify processes, technologies and gaps to implement certain capabilities – specifically addressing Technical Data interoperability, protection against malicious tampering with technical data, and the integration of national supply chain management systems.
Troika, as a member of Team JEDI, has been working to harness PLCS capabilities’ to employ solutions that enable a Defense AM force multiplier.
The first of these experiments will be at CWIX 2018. CWIX, NATO’s Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise, gathers stakeholders from NATO and partner nations to support the continuous improvement of interoperability. This is NATO’s largest interoperability event and is centered around exploration, experimentation, examination, and exercise. Learn even more about CWIX by visiting their website.
Troika Co-Founder and President of International Operations, Bill Black, recently participated in the initial planning sessions for AM demonstrations in CWIX and the MPC for CWIX 2018 which occurred in Garmisch, Germany. Black is highly encouraged by the progress within NATO and the latest developments across the globe.
Troika continues to play an increasingly larger role on the defense stage, and is a proud NATO partner.“We’ll be leveraging Troika technology and previous work done for the USMC EXLOG WarGame series, to provide the necessary AM SME support, infrastructure and tools that will enable a workable demonstration of AM,” Black said. “Inclusive of this demonstration will be the utilization of a Block Chain solution to insure the validity and provenance of the AM files and printed components.”
To learn more about Troika’s involvement with NATO, or our AM or JEDI capabilities, please contact Troika Solutions by emailing info@troikasol.com for information.
Pictured Above: Bill Black, Troika Solutions; Maj Chris Horny, German Army; Mr John Craib, NATO ACT; Col Howard Marotto, USMC; and Joel Battistioni, NEXUS LCM.