UK MoD and industry collaborate at the DMC

Image courtesy DMC

The Digital Manufacturing Centre (DMC), an advanced production facility and additive manufacturing (AM) innovation hub, hosted the latest UK MoD Strategic Command’s Additive Manufacturing innovation event, on 5th March 2025.

This MoD/industry collaborative event was held at DMC’s state-of-the-art AM production facility, located at the world-renowned Silverstone Park. The event was also supported by the Buckinghamshire Enterprise Zone.

Project TAMPA is a UK Strategic Command Defence Support sponsored project that is exploring the advantages of integrating the very latest AM (3D-printing) technology ‘from factory to foxhole’. From the outset, DMC has been intimately involved with Project TAMPA and is working in close partnership with the MoD and key defence players such as NP Aerospace, Babcock, Thales and RBSL, to support the development and delivery of this high-technology manufacturing capability, into the defence supply chain.

Fully aligned with the MoD’s Land Industrial Strategy (LIS) and the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), TAMPA is a spearhead initiative that is driving forward proactive collaboration with industry to rapidly find and integrate the very latest manufacturing technologies.

TAMPA Spiral 1 validated the ability of AM to produce non-safety critical NATO Stock Number (NSN) parts to the appropriate quality and Spiral 2 is expanding the requirement to include safety critical parts and demonstrate the ability for AM to add value to the part production process. DMC is also working in partnership with NP Aerospace to investigate the additional AM benefits possible by using Direct Energy Deposition (DED) methods to create large metal structural parts leveraging the benefits of AM to reduce lead times, reliance on tooling and cost.

The advantages of AM in the defence supply chain are numerous and include: weight saving; cost reduction, speed and agility; innovation in design, obsolescence management, inventory management and potentially, forward deployed additive manufacturing support.

Major General Phil Prosser, Director Joint Support said, “As the MoD’s Advanced Manufacturing Champion, it is hugely rewarding to witness what we have achieved by exploring and harnessing the benefits that additive manufacturing can bring. Project TAMPA is a prime example of how the MoD can work in partnership with both major defence contractors and smaller innovative British companies like the DMC, to push the boundaries of innovation and technology to maximise defence capability. Collaborating with defence primes and high-technology SME’s in this way is critical to protecting and developing the UK defence supply chain.”

Kieron Salter, CEO at DMC said: “We are very proud to have hosted such an important MoD event at our facility in Silverstone Park. DMC has an advanced engineering pedigree born from the most demanding of sectors such as Formula 1, hyper-cars, aerospace and space. At DMC, we pride ourselves in adopting a holistic approach to additive manufacturing; applying creativity and innovation to our engineering that leads to an optimised final production solution – we don’t just 3D-print to drawing.

"From hyper-cars to armoured vehicles, we apply the same pioneering solutions to ensure the customer secures the maximum benefit from the AM process and it has been a real pleasure to be working on Project TAMPA. I know that we have only just scratched the surface of what is possible through working together with the MoD and the defence supply chain like this, to achieve greater benefits – lots more to come.”