As global maritime threats evolve, the United States faces an urgent challenge: how to expand, modernize, and deliver new ships for the Department of Defense at a pace that meets mission needs. This session explores what must change—policy, workforce, funding, and industry collaboration—to increase shipbuilding capacity across the nation.
Building on prior discussions about modern acquisition and production models, this panel will examine how commercial shipyards can play a larger role in defense shipbuilding and what barriers must be overcome to make that possible. Topics include:
Leveraging Commercial Shipbuilders for Defense Needs: Opportunities for non-traditional yards to take on DOD work and lessons learned from recent awards.
Workforce Constraints: Understanding the workforce challenges as shipbuilders and suppliers ramp up to meet the needs of Executive Order Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance.
Funding, Grants, and Federal Investment: How current government programs support yard modernization, workforce training, and production efficiency—and where additional investment is needed.
Infrastructure Innovations: A look at Saronic’s Port Alpha model and how new approaches to modular, distributed, and autonomous production environments could reshape U.S. maritime manufacturing capacity.
Attendees will gain a realistic picture of the constraints facing American shipbuilding today and a forward-looking roadmap for what industry and government must do—together—to deliver ships faster, smarter, and at scale.
