Eric Chewning, deputy assistant secretary for industrial policy at the Defense Department, has said he projects that DoD could address about 33 percent of the identified supply chain gaps within a year and deal with another third in the next few years, Defense News reported Friday.
DoD issued in October a White House-commissioned study that found approximately 300 risks in the U.S. defense industrial base.
Chewning told the audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Friday that he considers the remaining issues in the report as “things that long term we’re going to have to manage, recognizing that new stuff is going to come in and things are going to pop out as we dynamically manage the industrial base.â€
The report said those vulnerabilities include suppliers that have decided to exit the defense market, those that could disappear from the sector and foreign-owned suppliers that could potentially leave the market in a critical situation.
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