• MEDC white paper reveals the foundations for defense competitiveness reshaping U.S. manufacturing
• New national survey finds that the U.S. defense industry widely prioritizes supply chain resilience over cost as workforce crisis deepens
• 90% of defense leaders struggle to hire talent as industry rethinks supply chains, innovation, and readiness

LANSING, Mich.: As the defense industry grows, a new report finds that America’s competitiveness now hinges on workforce availability, risk reduction, and regional innovation corridors. A new white paper from the Washington Post Creative Group, in collaboration with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), utilizes a survey with senior leaders in U.S. defense and aerospace, manufacturing, engineering, and supply chain to assess what the U.S. needs to compete globally. The white paper found dramatic workforce needs, resilience concerns, and benefits to state-level integration.

Nearly all executives surveyed (98%) say they are actively preparing for supply chain localization or reshoring, a near-unanimous call to reshore American defense production. However, nine in 10 executives (90%) report difficulty recruiting employees for today’s current defense needs, not future ones. The survey found that 51% of AI roles and 50% of advanced manufacturing roles are hard to fill across the sector. Cybersecurity recruiting difficulty is twice as high in defense vs. other sectors.

"A defense-ready workforce is one that is technically skilled, security-cleared or clearable, digitally fluent, and trained in the manufacturing and engineering disciplines that underpin many of our modern dependent systems,” said Col. John T. Gutierrez, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), executive director of Michigan’s Office of Defense and Aerospace Innovation (ODAI).

The MEDC white paper examined four factors that shape the competitiveness of the defense and aerospace sector and are prioritized in decisions on where to invest and scale operations:

Resilience overtaking efficiency

The white paper points to a fundamental shift in how defense and aerospace leaders define competitiveness. For years, manufacturers optimized supply chains around cost, speed, and efficiency. But in a sector where disruption can affect mission readiness, that model is no longer enough.

In the survey, resilience was cited as the greatest value of supply chain investment, outranking cost savings and production output. Defense leaders are looking for regions that can help them shorten development cycles while reducing risks such as geopolitical uncertainty, material shortages, cyber attacks, and sudden demand spikes.

“The future of defense competitiveness won’t belong to the lowest-cost region; it will belong to the most integrated one,” said Gutierrez. “Innovation is increasingly judged by its ability to move from concept to capability, and states that can integrate workforce, manufacturing, and testing ecosystems will be best-positioned to dominate the next era.”

The Great Lakes State model

Michigan offers a practical example of what this new model requires: a region where commercial manufacturing strength, defense suppliers, research institutions, and testing infrastructure are not treated as separate assets, but as part of one coordinated industrial system.

“Michigan benefits from a skilled workforce and strong academic base to pull new workers from,” said Matthew Warnick, CEO of American Rheinmetall.

The state is home to more than 4,000 defense-aligned companies, over 900 aerospace suppliers, and two of the U.S. Army's most critical commands: the Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) and the Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Ground Vehicle System Center (GVSC), placing Michigan at the center of ground vehicle design, engineering, and procurement. Major defense manufacturers include General Dynamics Land Systems, BAE Systems, and American Rheinmetall, while a 12-university National Security Consortium aligns academic research directly to Department of Defense (DoD) priorities.

Michigan also supports multi-domain testing - land, air, maritime, space, and cyber - in a single state through the National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC), Camp Grayling, and Selfridge Air National Guard Base. This is critical, as 88% of defense leaders surveyed said regional innovation corridors where R&D, manufacturing, and testing are co-located are critically important to their strategy.

The Michigan ODAI connects this ecosystem by guiding new and growing defense businesses through certification, funding access, and DoD market entry.

For defense and aerospace companies evaluating where to invest or expand, Michigan’s value proposition is that its assets are increasingly organized around resilient, integrated readiness. Download the white paper at https://www.michiganbusiness.org/defense-white-paper/.

About the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC)

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation is the state’s marketing arm and lead advocate for business development, job awareness and community development with the focus on growing Michigan’s economy. Through its Entrepreneurship and Innovation programs, the MEDC also helps high-tech startups and entrepreneurs navigate the path from ideation to commercialization. For more information on the MEDC and its initiatives, visit www.MichiganBusiness.org.

Fonte: Business Wire