DMSMS is the Silent Goliath Threatening U.S. Military Readiness

DMSMS, or Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages, is one of the greatest but often least visible threats to U.S. military readiness. Critical aircraft, ships, and weapon systems increasingly rely on parts that are no longer in production, difficult to source, or costly and time-consuming to reproduce. As obsolescence accelerates, aircraft are grounded, ships are sidelined, capacity shrinks, and deterrence weakens. This is not simply a maintenance issue; it is a threat to our national security.

Consider the B-52 Stratofortress. First delivered to the U.S. Air Force in 1955, the aircraft was designed for decades, not a century, of service. However, its challenge is not age; it is sustainment. Critical structural components such as spar caps and bulkheads are now failing. These parts were only intended to last the life of the aircraft and were never cataloged or supported for replacement. As a result, they lack National Stock Numbers and, in many cases, the technical data required to reproduce them.

But the issue extends well beyond structure. Legacy wiring, obsolete avionics, and aging engine systems all face diminishing sources of supply as original manufacturers exit the market. What should be routine maintenance evolves into a complex engineering and supply chain problem. This is the reality of DMSMS.

This scarcity is not surprising. Many platforms are operating far beyond their original design assumptions, placing sustained demand on supply chains that were never built to support them at this scale or duration. Imagine maintaining a 1955 automobile. Now imagine trying to replace a steering assembly with no original drawings and no manufacturer. That is the challenge facing the legacy systems our warfighters rely on today.

When parts cannot be sourced or recreated, we are left with limited options. This drives long and costly acquisition timelines and often forces teams into cannibalization, removing parts from one system to keep another operational. While this may sustain operations in the short term, it increases maintenance burden and masks the true extent of underlying supply shortages.

The True Costs of Obsolescence

DMSMS drives up total cost of ownership, with approximately 70 percent of lifecycle costs occurring during it's sustainment after a system is fielded. When a structural component such as a bulkhead or spar cap fails and no replacement exists, the cost is not in the part itself; it is in the process. Engineers must reverse engineer the component, develop manufacturing methods, and certify the solution before it can be fielded. In complex cases, this requires depot-level work and extended system downtime, driving significant cost and schedule impact. A single event can cost millions of dollars and take years to resolve.

A New Blueprint for Readiness: Moving Beyond the Reactive Cycle

Part of the solution lies in shifting from reactive firefighting to predictive management. A recent initiative at the U.S. Coast Guard’s C5I Service Center demonstrates what this looks like in practice. Rather than responding to obsolescence as it occurred, more than 6,000 items were enrolled in lifecycle tracking and continuously evaluated for supplier viability, technical data availability, and time-to-obsolescence. The enterprise value was immediately apparent. What began as a C5ISC-focused effort quickly expanded to provide obsolescence support for the Surface Forces Logistics Center and early induction of parts for the Aviation Logistics Center. The cross-platform scaling demonstrated the multiplier effect of DMSMS solutions designed for enterprise-wide application rather than program-specific fixes. Teams then conducted case analysis and risk assessments, qualified alternate parts, and executed mitigation strategies before shortages occurred. To date, 415 obsolescence cases have been resolved, avoiding mission impacts and reducing cost exposure. This approach, championed by D&G Solutions, does not eliminate obsolescence by itself. But it does change how obsolescence is managed. Instead of reacting to shortages, organizations can anticipate them and act before readiness is degraded. That distinction is critical.

Designing for Sustainment

Sustainment challenges do not begin in the field; they begin at design. As platforms outlive their original design assumptions, those limitations become operational risks. Avoiding those outcomes requires deliberate design choices from the start, including:

Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) addresses one of the root causes of DMSMS. MOSA enables systems to be designed as interchangeable modules with standard interfaces, allowing components to be replaced or upgraded without redesigning the entire platform. The Department of War has already begun prioritizing MOSA in programs such as Future Vertical Lift.

Digital twins are complete digital models of components that preserve the engineering data needed to reproduce and sustain them over time. To envision this, think of it this way – a photo of a car only shows what it looks like. But a digital twin captures the full blueprint, how the engine runs, and its service history. Without that data, parts can become difficult or impossible to manufacture once original suppliers are gone. While building a digital twin can be time-intensive, modern tools like Palantir Foundry can accelerate the process by integrating engineering, supply chain, and operational data into a single model, thus operationalizing the data.

Securing technical data rights ensures the government can actually use that information. It is the difference between having the blueprint (and being able to use it), versus remaining dependent on a single vendor. When that vendor exits the market, programs are left with limited and costly alternatives. These rights must be secured at contract award, not after a part becomes obsolete.

Scaling the Solution Across the Enterprise

Today, many programs manage obsolescence independently, limiting their ability to influence suppliers or sustain production. Aggregating demand across the enterprise can create the scale needed to attract manufacturers and maintain supply. Expanding the supplier base, qualifying alternative sources, and investing in advanced manufacturing methods further reduce dependency on single vendors.

The Department has already begun moving in this direction. Efforts such as the Enterprise Parts Management System are intended to provide a centralized, enterprise-wide view of parts and supply chain risk. However, these capabilities remain in development and are not yet fully integrated across the Department.

Beyond Technology: The Data Investment Gap

The foundational challenge is not operationalizing digital twins and advanced analytics. Modern platforms like Foundry have largely solved the data integration and visualization problems. The real challenge is securing and investing the substantial upfront resources required to develop comprehensive digital twins with accurate data. Without clean, current, and complete data feeding these systems, even the most sophisticated analytics platforms become expensive dashboards displaying unreliable information.

Programs consistently underestimate the intensive effort required to establish and maintain the data infrastructure that makes digital twins valuable. This includes not just initial data collection and validation, but ongoing data governance, quality assurance, and maintenance processes. Technology exists to operationalize insights across engineering, supply chain, and sustainment decisions but only when fed with trustworthy data.

Conquering the DMSMS Goliath

No single organization or program can solve DMSMS alone. It is a Goliath-sized challenge that demands coordinated, disciplined action across the enterprise.

This is not just a sustainment issue. It is a readiness and deterrence issue.

The path forward is clear: build systems that anticipate obsolescence, design platforms that can adapt to it, and coordinate decisions across the enterprise before it impacts the mission. If we fail to do so, DMSMS will continue to define the limits of readiness.