How to Accelerate the Military Supply Chain in PA
Today, at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, U.S. Sen. David McCormick is convening some of America’s top leaders, including President Trump, and executives of Boeing, SpaceX, Palantir, JP Morgan and Exiger, for a two-day event focused on America’s military supply chains and the defense industrial base that underpins it.
It’s fitting that this convening is taking place a few miles from the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. Some 163 years ago, the county seat became the site for this landmark battle precisely because of its proximity to critical supply chains and raw materials for materiel and provisions.
It’s also fitting to hold this week’s event in Pennsylvania, because the state plays a key role supplying today’s military. That’s according to a first-of-its-kind report that my company, Exiger, is issuing today. The data show, in a level of detail not previously understood, how some 180,000 Pennsylvanians work each day to produce over 465,000 parts that the military uses to protect our nation and project strength abroad.
If you live in the Commonwealth, this work happens all around you at 8,939 companies across the state. At the Boeing plant in Ridley Park, Pennsylvanians make the H-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter and restore and produce the V-22 Osprey. Within an hour, you can be at Leonardo Helicopters with production lines turning out several training airframes for the Navy and the Air Force’s MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopter, which protect America’s nuclear missiles.
The northern and central regions of Pennsylvania produce more than 40% of the world’s powdered metal parts, which are key to creating things like lightweight armor, missile parts, and precision gun barrels. Central Pennsylvania has grown into a node for the Army’s tracked combat vehicle production, and the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant produces a significant number of the military’s howitzer shells.
In Greater Philadelphia, we estimate private sector shipbuilders and public shipyards account for about 20% of the entire supply chain for the Columbia-class submarine. Other parts of the state are home to facilities that produce the propulsion plants that power the modern fleet as well as the steel that the Navy uses to build submarine hulls and aircraft carrier decks.
Exiger’s analysis found that many of these places are the sole source for the parts the Navy needs. For example, we found nearly 5,000 parts of the Osprey and roughly 3,700 parts of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer are sole-sourced from Pennsylvania.
Looking at this layer of detail, it’s possible to better identify important risks for the state’s economy and for the country’s defense industrial base as a whole.
First, the U.S. and our allies are too reliant on raw materials controlled by our adversaries. To make these parts and systems across the state, we need to find new sources of materials like tin, titanium, magnesium, zinc, and dozens of other elements. America’s largest adversarial competitors, like the Chinese Communist Party, currently control so much of the supply that they have the ability to create chokepoints that would degrade our ability to resupply in a large-scale war.
America’s ability to manufacture at scale has also declined so much that we are vulnerable should we ever need to scale production. For example, 32,092 of Pennsylvania-supplied parts are cast or forged. In the last two decades, 240 U.S. forging plants have closed, leaving only about 150 in operation. This concentrates demand among a shrinking pool of qualified suppliers, lengthening lead times and creating sole- or single-sourced dependencies for critical components.
Finally, the way that the military procures parts is too complex. Military specifications establish the design, material, testing, quality-control, and performance requirements that defense components must meet before they can be integrated into military systems. These are important. They help ensure parts don’t fail when lives are on the line. But they also make it harder to build and source replacements. For example, one access door on the CH-47, a dual-rotor helicopter, has two components that each adhere to 72 separate requirements, making them extremely difficult to produce and deterring new entrants into the market.
Perhaps most important to the leaders gathered in Carlisle today, our report looks at the military’s future.
Exiger found Pennsylvania is home to four sectors where targeted investment from the government and businesses can further strengthen the military’s supply chain and the state’s economy. Pennsylvania can build on its robotics, autonomy, AI, and additive manufacturing strengths by investing in skilled labor, testing, and qualification infrastructure. The state can preserve and expand traditional production, especially critical parts supplied by specialized manufacturers. The state is also a leader in space innovation and can strengthen its position with investments in lunar robotics and space manufacturing. And finally, Pennsylvania can reduce America’s raw material and processing vulnerabilities by recovering critical minerals like Germanium from coal refuse, fly ash, and mine waste and expanding domestic capabilities like titanium melt, forge, and processing.
The data that we are releasing today gives leaders the clearest view into military’s supply chains.
It offers a roadmap to strengthening Pennsylvania’s economy, reducing vulnerabilities in this vital supply chain that underpins America’s defense industrial base and making our nation safer and stronger.
