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On Point: Q&A With Jordan Dunseth

Jordan Dunseth, solutions architect with Siemens Government Technologies (SGT), has a background in industrial engineering and is a recent graduate of the University of Central Florida’s Master’s in Engineering Management program. His focus is on software for manufacturing, operational sustainment and availability, Defense Department acquisition, and all things product life-cycle management for the aerospace and defense community.

Jordan Dunseth discusses advanced manufacturing with SIGNAL Media. Credit: KN Studio-stock.adobe.com generated by AI

What are the biggest cultural or organizational barriers to adopting advanced manufacturing at the tactical edge—and how can the Department of Defense overcome them?
As technology rapidly advances in distributed advanced manufacturing (AM), both cultural and organizational policies and procedures need time to catch up and adapt. Manufacturing at the edge requires technical data packages and machine code to be more highly accessible, secure and trusted. Embracing the digital thread—a single source of truth for continuous flow of data that defines a given product life cycle—can build the needed confidence in approval workflows, machine configuration, finishing steps and more, allowing AM to scale organically at the point of need.

What standards or frameworks are most critical to ensuring data integrity and cyber protection throughout the entire life cycle?
Data integrity in AM assumes that a set of processes and requirements results in trusted manufacturing information at the edge.

Configuration management is key. For security purposes, streamlined data federation must ensure that only distributed teams have access to the data relevant to their manufacturing needs, with limited access elsewhere. Lastly, just as secure networking and communications must be established with the manufacturing data repository, the final mile delivery of machine code to the AM device must not expose sensitive information to modern malware and cyber threats.

How do you envision roles, training requirements and workforce expectations evolving for service members operating point-of-need manufacturing technology in austere or denied environments?
Extending advanced manufacturing into austere environments should avoid contributing additional complexity, empowering manufacturing artisans to be artisans and not data scientists. Workforce expectations and training will likely follow the natural curve of scalability and investment in AM within the Defense Department as key manufacturing skills become even more critical and distributed.

From your perspective, what does “trustworthy autonomy” look like when applied to advanced manufacturing systems at the operational edge, and how can the military balance automation, safety and human oversight in high-risk environments?
Autonomy within the context of edge manufacturing should facilitate the flow of information to the correct stakeholder at the time of need, without burdensome, complex software systems. Manufacturing data is naturally not static; changes to work instructions, specifications or design elements need to be performed and communicated efficiently. Automating the flow of information is critical to delivering actionable insights to the personnel required to make manual decisions, whether they are sign-offs for change management processes or one-time approvals to use parts in safety-vulnerable applications.

How is SGT approaching the challenge of enabling point-of-need manufacturing in a way that aligns with DOD requirements for cybersecurity, zero trust and operational resilience?
SGT’s work in the contested logistics/distributed AM space is formulated using our commercial off-the-shelf software for AM resilience in fully disconnected, austere environments. Combining product life-cycle management, rapid application development and a seamless data transition between cloud environment(s) and deployable edge devices, SGT develops role-based user interfaces and functionality to keep the edge agile and the fighting force equipped with relevant AM data. We’ve successfully demonstrated encrypted no-file-at-rest manufacturing, where manufacturing data never leaves the secure controlled repository or exists at rest on AM machines, but instead code is delivered in encrypted form line-by-line as the manufacturing occurs. This ensures that those in theater get the data they need securely without putting sensitive intellectual property at risk.