https://defencemachines.com/ Essays on the defence industrial base: acquisition and requirement cycles, sustainment and readiness as a flow problem, programme timelines against technology timelines, dual-use manufacturing, and supply chain capacity. en https://defencemachines.com/dual-use-is-a-manufacturing-question/ https://defencemachines.com/dual-use-is-a-manufacturing-question/ Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Manufacturing Policy treats dual-use as a matter of technology transfer. On the shop floor it is a question about whether two disciplines with opposite attitudes to change can share the same machines and people. https://defencemachines.com/capacity-is-a-decision-made-years-earlier/ https://defencemachines.com/capacity-is-a-decision-made-years-earlier/ Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Industrial base Surge capacity is discussed as if it were a dial. It is a stock of tooling, qualified suppliers and trained people, each with its own lead time, and it is created by order books rather than by intentions. https://defencemachines.com/two-clocks-in-every-programme/ https://defencemachines.com/two-clocks-in-every-programme/ Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisition A platform is designed on a decades-long clock and filled with components that turn over every few years. The gap is structural, and the only honest responses are architectural and budgetary. https://defencemachines.com/readiness-is-a-rate-not-a-number/ https://defencemachines.com/readiness-is-a-rate-not-a-number/ Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Sustainment Availability is the output of a flow system, and reporting it as a single percentage hides the only thing worth knowing — which stage of the repair pipeline is setting the answer.