Stratasys (NASDAQ: SSYS) shares decreased in price Thursday. The company recently participated in Trident Warrior 25, the U.S. Navy’s flagship Fleet experimentation exercise, demonstrating how advanced manufacturing keeps military units operational at sea and in forward-deployed locations.
“In partnership with FLEETWERX,” read this morning’s news release, “and the Naval Postgraduate School’s Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education (CAMRE), Stratasys supported the Joint Advanced Manufacturing Cell (JAMC) with field-deployable 3D printers and on-demand production through Stratasys Direct.”
The JAMC was the Department of Defense’s largest distributed manufacturing demonstration to date, connecting assets across more than 8,000 miles. The exercise allowed the Navy to print parts in theater or reach back to Stratasys Direct for higher-volume or complex production, creating a wide-ranging ecosystem of support and options across forward-deployed locations.
During the exercise, seven different sites across the global leveraged Stratasys printers, with all parts meeting U.S. military specifications. Trident Warrior 25 also demonstrated that by deploying 3D printers in the field, there is reduced reliance on traditional logistics chains.
Lightweight, corrosion-resistant polymer parts were used to create new components, replace broken parts, and produce rapid prototypes in-theater, supported by reach-back production from Stratasys Direct.
“Trident Warrior 25 demonstrated the value of a multi-echelon polymer advanced manufacturing network,” said Morgan Bower, Program Manager, FLEETWERX.
SSYS shares began Thursday’s session down 28 cents, or 2.8%, to $9.58.
