In early 2016, the Office of Strategy and Innovation (S&I) was approached by 1st Marine Logistics Group, 1st Maintenance Battalion’s Marine Corps Expeditionary Manufacturing (EXMAN) for seed funding to design, build, and test an Advanced Manufacturing facility that would perform under actual operational conditions, and would be tested during the Marine Corps’ annual Exercise Steel Knight (SK-17).
The Marine Corps’ objective was to make it mobile so that during an operation, whenever key parts break down, replacement parts could be fabricated on the spot, thereby eliminating well-known supply line hurdles. The result nowadays is a deployable 3D Printing studio in a mobile containerized shelter which can be used anywhere in the world, supporting the immediate needs of the Marines on the ground during operations or combat.
