Fabian Alefeld speaks with Captain Jason Deichler, Chief of Staff, Director, Submarine Programs, about the U.S. Navy’s effort to increase submarine production and sustainment capacity while rebuilding a strained industrial base. Deichler explains the challenges created by decades of manufacturing consolidation, workforce shortages, supplier attrition, and lost casting and forging capabilities, all while pursuing the Navy’s ambitious "one plus two" goal: delivering one Columbia-class and two Virginia-class submarines annually.
The conversation explores the Navy’s strategy for strengthening submarine production, guided by Admiral Gaucher’s four pillars: stabilizing submarine designs, allowing prime shipyards to focus on integration, expanding the industrial base, and designing future platforms with advanced manufacturing in mind. Deichler discusses how additive manufacturing (AM) helps address obsolescence, reduce lead times, expand supplier capacity, and improve supply chain resilience.
They also examine the growing adoption of both polymer and metal AM, including the qualification of new materials and processes, lessons learned from deploying AM components, and the industry's progress toward certifying increasingly critical applications. The episode concludes with insights into supplier engagement, workforce development, and how companies can support the future of submarine production through the Submarine Industrial Base initiative.
02:21 The State of the Submarine Industrial Base
05:07 The Navy's "One Plus Two" Production Goal
06:54 The Four Pillars Strategy
10:54 Workforce, Suppliers & Obsolescence Challenges
13:12 Rebuilding Capacity with Advanced Manufacturing
18:45 Safety, Data & Certification Requirements
21:22 AI, Cobots & Productivity Improvements
25:34 When Additive Manufacturing Became Mission Critical
29:05 From Skepticism to Adoption
31:51 Scaling from 25 to 75 Qualified Parts
32:54 Lessons from Space Applications
35:16 Qualification and Production Scale-Up
36:22 Selecting the Right Parts for Additive Manufacturing
38:26 New Standards, PPDs & Material Qualification
39:54 Procurement, Ordering & Supply Chain Systems
42:18 Data Rights, Digital Thread & Machine Capacity
43:31 Supplier Demand and Industrial Base Growth
50:28 The Future: Tens of Thousands of Parts
56:00 Neo-Primes, Modularization & New Production Models
57:57 How Suppliers Can Get Involved
59:48 Closing Thoughts
