For Patrick Tucker, a retired United States Marine Corps Colonel, now Strategic Business Development Manager at Phillips Federal, the last three weeks have been a full circle moment. He’s in California, the same place he was stationed for part of his career in the Marine Corps, where he’s been leading a field exercise at Camp Pendleton around deploying a fully integrated expeditionary manufacturing ecosystem.
Tucker speaks with TCT just days after the two-week exercise has been completed, and it’s gone well. Surprisingly well.
“I didn’t expect that we would print that volume of parts,” Tucker says of the 200 plus components the squadron was able to produce in a single build using EOS’s polymer laser powder bed fusion technology.
“Laser powder bed technology has been questioned as to whether it’s too sensitive for being deployed,” he continues. “I’m starting to believe that’s not the case.”
Deployable advanced manufacturing solutions are increasingly becoming a sought-after capability in defence to support long or vulnerable supply chain logistics, part obsolescence and repairs.
