The Department began fiscal 2026 holding $382.4 billion in unexpired, unobligated appropriations, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act added $152.3 billion more, and in June the administration asked for another $67.1 billion.
Why money is not the immediate problem
Those dollar figures are striking because they belie the central argument advanced by James DeMuth, CEO and co‑founder of Seurat Technologies: the defense industrial base is constrained by time, not capital. Appropriations can be passed quickly and equipment bought within months, but turning a shop into a qualified supplier—capable of producing parts that meet program standards—takes far longer. Qualification, DeMuth writes, is now one of the largest hidden components of what he calls mobilization latency.
How qualification stretches timelines: PAC‑3 MSE as an example
The article uses a concrete example to show the gap between budgeted capacity and deliverable combat capacity. Boeing builds the active radar seeker for every PAC‑3 MSE interceptor in Huntsville, and in April the Pentagon signed a seven‑year framework intended to triple that output. A finished interceptor takes about two years to build; by contrast, qualifying a new component supplier commonly takes 18 to 36 months. The consequence: rounds bought this year are unlikely to reach the field before 2028.
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End the scrambleProgram managers, audits, and "qualify once, use many"
DeMuth identifies program‑office practice as a proximate cause of long qualification latency. A supplier that passed an audit for one program generally starts from zero for the next because each program office is accountable for its own risk judgment. The proposed remedy is a doctrine of "qualify once, use many": keep part qualification program‑specific while making factory evidence portable so one office need not re‑prove the shop before it begins proving the part. The author notes that JAQS‑SQ, a $10.5‑million America Makes project call, is building that framework now, and that Seurat is one of 25 awardees under JAQS‑SQ.
Budget mechanics: fund qualification and use multiyear contracting
DeMuth calls for two budget and contracting fixes that he says do not require new authority and do not lower standards. First, treat qualification as its own budget line: inside industrial‑base accounts, qualification currently competes against tooling and usually loses because tooling yields visible purchases inside one budget cycle while qualification takes longer to mature. He estimates such a line would cost about one percent of industrial base appropriations—or roughly $82 million against the $8.2 billion the Reconciliation Act routed through the Industrial Base Fund.
Second, increase multiyear acquisition to create the durable demand lower‑tier suppliers can borrow against. The Department, the author reports, estimates it has lost more than 40 percent of its small‑business suppliers over the past decade; surviving shops are operating at capacity and must pull engineering hours from paying work to qualify parts that may never be ordered. Multiyear contracts, DeMuth argues, turn stated intent into contractual certainty that banks and investors can finance.
What this means for Seurat Technologies, program managers, and small suppliers
- Seurat Technologies: The company would benefit directly from more funding for supplier qualification; it makes metal parts using an additive process named Area Printing and sells finished parts rather than printers. The author acknowledges his position and that some proposed changes—most notably no additive‑specific set‑asides—would in fact cost companies like his business.
- Program managers and acquisition leaders: They face a tradeoff between minimizing program‑level risk and reducing mobilization latency. Accepting other offices’ audit results would speed supplier entry but requires an institutional decision to share and trust audit evidence beyond program boundaries.
- Small suppliers and financiers: Shops with no idle capacity struggle to absorb qualification engineering without guaranteed orders. Multiyear procurement is pitched as the practical lever to create the demand signal banks need to underwrite expansions without more government grants.
DeMuth underscores that the proposed changes do not relax technical rigor. Qualification must remain rigorous—"a motor case that fails in flight kills people"—and additive processes deserve particular scrutiny because microstructure depends on machine parameters. His point is procedural: the infrastructure for running rigorous standards—trained auditors, shared process control documents, material databases—is currently treated like an afterthought and should be funded and organized to shorten the 18‑ to 36‑month lag between money appropriated and parts delivered.
In a longer conflict, he warns, deterrence will hinge on how quickly the United States can convert manufacturing capacity into qualified production. The next phase of rebuilding the arsenal, DeMuth concludes, should be measured not in dollars obligated or factories expanded but in how many additional qualified suppliers can produce critical parts and how fast they can begin delivering them.
