Imagine a football game where all the players and coaches spoke different languages. Touchdowns would still occur, but the chaos in every play could hardly be called winning — yet that’s precisely where our defense industrial base finds itself. Without widespread adoption of a model-based enterprise (MBE), communication between prime defense contractors and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remains suboptimal. Going beyond 2D isometric drawings with callouts, MBE uses an annotated 3D model that is the definitive source for all information. Essentially, MBE makes it easy for everyone to speak the same language. SMEs need MBE to increase productivity, quality, and profitability, and reduce non-value-added work, among other things. William Sobel, co-founder at Metalogi, is renowned for his role as the chief architect of the MTConnect standard, a model-based semantic standard for manufacturing equipment. Sobel is on a mission to help create a robust defense supply chain through MBE adoption. As part of the IMTS 2024 focus on the defense industry (with an exhibit highlighting collaborative efforts with the U.S. Navy and its industrial partners and a presentation from Rear Admiral Todd S. Weeks), AMT invited Sobel to deliver five presentations on the topic at IMTS 2024. AMT asked Sobel to explain the situation. IMTS: Why do we need MBE? Sobel: If we’re going to rebuild manufacturing in the United States, we need to start by looking at our supply chain and focus on getting communication and requirement negotiations started between the DoD, OEMs, and SMEs. Simply put, we’re not going to make progress without MBE extending through the supply chain because it is impossible to implement without standards. IMTS: Why is this so urgent? Sobel: The strength of our defense industrial base is built on the fact that we have a distributed manufacturing system that allows for innovation and flexible capacity provided by thousands of job shops and contract manufacturers. However, our strength is also our weakness. IMTS: What is the challenge for SMEs? Sobel: DoD requirements passed down from the primes are often difficult for SMEs to meet. Take data security and management. SMEs have to fill out a spreadsheet with 150 items that tells the DoD exactly how they’re going to manage data. Job shop owners are worried that if they fill out a form incorrectly, they will get audited and could lose business. As a result, they spend hours providing information about the data, but in the end, the data might not even be important. IMTS: Is anyone using a model-based system? Sobel: Pressure is being applied from the top down to become model-based, but there is no standard. When OEMs send an SME a KIA (key inspection attribute) file, the model may be in a native form. What happens when a shop’s software can’t convert the product manufacturing information? Conversion is a huge issue. Without MBE standards, a 20-person mom-and-pop shop has to have a person whose job it is to write scripts and perform data management tasks to fix the model that comes from the prime. Instead of doing what they’re good at — making parts — SMEs have to learn new technologies or hire someone. That’s nothing for a large defense contractor, but it’s a considerable cost and time burden on an SME. IMTS: What should the industry do? Sobel: Software companies have to get behind MBE standards and not try to make anything quasi-proprietary by adding their own “secret sauce” to the standard. For example, geometric models become complex because there are about a dozen different ways, even in a STEP file, you can represent the same geometries. When you transfer files between software platforms, sometimes dimensions won’t completely line up because the way the software does the math is slightly different. Unfortunately, SMEs cannot afford to hire people who are experts in all the different CAD packages. It’s going to drive them out of business. IMTS: What does the solution look like? Sobel: We need to have MBE capabilities baked into the existing technologies that SMEs are using so that they can quickly adopt them. The solution is not going to be distributing a whole bunch of tech people to every single shop in the world. We need to provide SMEs with solutions that work seamlessly and automatically. Instead of having to go through a hundred steps to get somebody's native model imported from an OEM, SMEs will import a file and it will just work. IMTS: Who’s going to pay for this? Sobel: Good question. The primes can afford it, but SMEs can’t. We could create a grant program that would seed companies with a tech stack that would then allow them to have import models and transform models in a way that would be vendor agnostic. That gives SMEs the capabilities to bid contracts that are currently too burdensome. The DoD knows it needs better engagement with SMEs, and this is one way to accomplish that goal. IMTS: What have you been doing to help solve the problem? Sobel: Does ranting for two decades count? But seriously, I served on the ASME MBE & Y14 Joint Committee, which helps develop standards. For IMTS 2024, AMT sponsored a video project to help communicate the need, which can be found at IMTS.com/MDE. I talked with half a dozen SMEs, and they have a pretty clear vision about what they need from the primes. They need clear communication channels. They need to meet face-to-face where they can negotiate the requirements for a particular contract. They need to be able to work wit so that they can optimize the manufacturing processes to meet the requirements. IMTS: How does a dialog help? Sobel: Right now, it is complete flow down to the point where some primes say, “make a part our way or we’ll find somebody else.” That doesn’t grow the industrial base. We need a dialog where there’s a chance to be able to give feedback and then have iterations on the process. Regarding feedback and archival, we need clear use cases describing which data requirements are necessary and how the data will be authorized and secured, instead of “just give us everything.” Asking for a gargantuan amount of data creates inefficiencies and resistance. IMTS: Where can SMEs go to learn more or get involved? Sobel: ASME created an MBE Standards Committee and published a framework in June of 2022. NIST published a good overview of the ASME work. Action Engineering offers an MBE Dictionary and extensive MBE services. Action Engineering CEO Jennifer Herron and I served on the same Y14 Joint Committee. Her MBE recommendation report offers valuable insights.
MBEE enables a single source of truth and bi-directional communication, optimizing U.S. manufacturing by connecting defense primes, OEMs, and SMEs with open, affordable standards.
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