U.S. production has long prioritized efficiency more than resiliency with a focus on long, lean supply chains over security, sustainability and agility. This has resulted in heavy reliance on foreign sourcing creating a pared-down U.S. manufacturing base that is unable to scale up and fulfill our needs in times of crisis. The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed this gap.

To ensure long-term sustainability, efficiency at the expense of resiliency cannot be the sole criterion around which supply chains are designed. This reconfiguration needs to sit at the nexus of policy, economic development, education and technology.

Initiatives such as the Texas Defense Aerospace Manufacturing Community (TDAMC) with intentions to grow across the state of Texas recognizes this moment as a renaissance of American manufacturing. TDAMC also seeks to enable a competitive Texas manufacturing ecosystem to empower small- and medium-sized enterprises.