FMD Leverages Robotics, Additive Manufacturing to Help Keep USN Sailing

In an era when the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard face mounting pressure to keep aging fleets operational while accelerating new ship construction, sustainment has emerged as one of the maritime industrial base’s most urgent challenges. For Fairbanks Morse Defense (FMD), solving that challenge has become central to its growth strategy.

Under the leadership of CEO Steve Pykett, the company is expanding through acquisitions and targeted investments in robotics, additive manufacturing and artificial intelligence. The goal is twofold: improve the efficiency and resilience of its own manufacturing operations while dramatically reducing maintenance timelines for naval vessels that depend on its equipment.

“Everything we do is ultimately about mission readiness,” said Pykett. “The Navy and the Coast Guard want reliability and schedule. If we can deliver parts and services faster and more predictably, we help keep those platforms at sea where they belong.”

An Expanding Portfolio

Fairbanks Morse Defense has been on a sustained acquisition streak since private equity ownership took hold in 2020, expanding the company’s technology base and manufacturing capabilities. Among the most significant additions is the acquisition of propulsion manufacturer Bird-Johnson, formerly part of Rolls-Royce. Pykett calls the purchase “potentially the most strategic acquisition in the company’s history,” largely because of the casting and machining infrastructure that supports large naval propellers.

“The casting facility that came with Bird-Johnson is essentially a national treasure,” he said. “Outside of Navy shipyards, it’s the only independent facility capable of producing some of the large fixed-pitch propellers required for naval vessels.”

The facility also highlights a broader supply-chain challenge the industry faces. Quality casting suppliers are increasingly difficult to find, and inconsistencies in the supply chain can lead to delays and rework cycles.

“Casting remains essential to our supply chain,” Pykett explained. “But we also have to recognize its vulnerabilities. That’s where technology and manufacturing innovation come into play.”

Other recent acquisitions reflect the same strategy, notably the company’s recent acquisition of Trueflo will expand FMD’s presence across international navies and introduced advanced additive manufacturing and testing capabilities developed at the company’s U.K. facility.

Together, the acquisitions are cumulatively transforming FMD from a traditional equipment manufacturer into a broader technology provider for naval sustainment.

Advanced Manufacturing Moves to Center Stage

Additive manufacturing—often broadly referred to as 3D printing—has become one of the most visible pillars of that transformation.

When Pykett joined FMD last year, he brought more than 25 years of leadership experience across aerospace and defense, including senior roles at Precision Castparts, GKN Aerospace, L3Harris Technologies, and Rolls-Royce. That background helped to shape how he views Fairbanks Morse Defense — not as a legacy manufacturer, but as a platform business focused on availability, reliability and lifecycle performance. “What attracted me to FMD,” Pykett says, “was the mission-critical nature of what the company does every day. When our equipment isn’t available, ships don’t sail.”

As he sees it, the maritime sector is only beginning to tap the technology’s potential.

“In aerospace, additive manufacturing has been evolving for decades,” he said. “In maritime we’re still catching up, but the potential is enormous.”

The U.S. Navy is already moving quickly to qualify printed components. According to Pykett, the number of approved parts has expanded rapidly in recent years, and the service has signaled its intent to scale the technology across its fleet.

At FMD, additive manufacturing is being used not only for finished parts but also as a tool to address supply-chain bottlenecks.

One example is the company’s investment in 3D-printed sand molds, which allows engineers to bypass the need for traditional casting tooling. Instead of waiting months to produce a new mold, engineers can print one directly and move quickly into production.

“That allows us to remove a major constraint in the supply chain,” Pykett said. “If a tool no longer exists or needs modification, we can produce it much more rapidly.”

In other cases, additive manufacturing enables entirely new designs that conventional manufacturing methods cannot produce.

Nirav Patel, senior director for FMD’s Nuclear Navy aftermarket support segment, points to valves developed through the Trueflo acquisition as an example.

“By printing the internal geometry of the valve, we can create flow paths that simply can’t be machined,” Patel explained. “Those designs can reduce turbulence and noise inside the valve—up to about 20 decibels in some cases—which is critical for submarine operations.”

The broader concept, Patel said, is less about replacing traditional manufacturing entirely and more about applying advanced manufacturing techniques where they deliver clear operational advantages.

“We’re starting to shift the terminology toward ‘advanced manufacturing,’” he said. “Additive manufacturing is one piece of that, but the real goal is solving engineering problems in smarter ways.”

Robotics Transforming Shipboard Maintenance

While advanced manufacturing addresses production challenges, robotics is tackling another critical issue: maintenance efficiency.

For decades, many shipboard repairs have relied on highly skilled technicians working in confined and physically demanding spaces. Submarine engine overhauls provide a stark example.

Inside the tight engine rooms of aging submarines, technicians must weld thousands of beads to repair engine components such as crankshaft saddles—work that can take weeks under difficult conditions.

“In some cases you’re crawling into a space with about two feet of clearance,” Patel said. “You’re lying in the oil sump looking up, welding bead after bead while wearing full protective gear in very high temperatures.”

Recognizing the inefficiency of the process, FMD engineers developed a robotic welding system mounted on a track platform that can perform the same task automatically with extreme precision.

The results have been dramatic.

“What used to take three to four weeks can now be completed in about five days,” Patel said.

The robotic system also improves quality. Maintaining consistent weld parameters across thousands of beads is extremely difficult for human welders, but a robotic system can replicate each weld precisely.

To ensure quality control, FMD integrated machine vision and artificial intelligence into the system. A near-field camera captures high-magnification images of each weld, and an AI engine compares them against thousands of examples of acceptable and defective welds.

“If the system detects something that doesn’t meet the standard, it flags it immediately,” Patel said. “Then a human welder steps in to evaluate and correct it if necessary.”

The combination of robotics and AI has already been used successfully on two submarines and is being deployed on additional vessels as needed.

“We keep the human expert involved,” Patel said. “But the robot does the heavy lifting and ensures consistency.”

Standardizing Ops Across FMD

As Fairbanks Morse Defense expands through acquisitions, the company is also working to unify operations across its growing portfolio of businesses. One early initiative under Pykett’s leadership was the creation of a centralized program management office designed to standardize best practices across the organization.

“When you have a federation of companies, you naturally end up with multiple ways of doing things,” Pykett said. “But at our scale we need to identify the best approach and apply it across the enterprise.”

Supply-chain coordination is another focus area. Rather than allowing individual divisions to procure identical components independently, FMD is working to consolidate purchasing and improve leverage with suppliers.

The strategy is intended to preserve the entrepreneurial identity of acquired companies while introducing shared processes that improve efficiency and customer responsiveness.

“We want these companies to maintain their brand and their sense of ownership,” Pykett said. “But at the same time we want to ensure we’re operating as one integrated team when it matters.”

AI Enters the Toolbox

Beyond robotics and additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence is beginning to play a larger role across FMD operations.

Internally, the company has already deployed an AI-based system to help technicians access technical expertise in the field. With more than 150 service technicians supporting naval assets worldwide, rapid access to knowledge can significantly reduce repair times.

“Instead of digging through manuals or waiting for a specialist, a technician can query the system and receive guidance almost instantly,” Pykett said.

AI is also being used to streamline complex engineering and contracting processes. Navy technical requirements can span thousands of pages across multiple documents, making proposal development time-consuming.

By using AI tools to analyze those documents and extract key requirements, engineers can respond faster and with greater accuracy.

Another promising application involves production scheduling. Working with technology partners, FMD is developing AI-driven scheduling systems capable of optimizing manufacturing workflows across multiple operations.

“In a complex manufacturing environment, scheduling is almost an art form,” Pykett said. “If we can capture that expertise digitally, we can respond much more quickly to supply disruptions or changing customer demands.”

Supporting the Maritime Industrial Base

All of these initiatives ultimately serve a broader objective: strengthening the maritime industrial base that supports U.S. naval operations.

With geopolitical tensions rising and naval fleets aging, policymakers in Washington have placed new emphasis on rebuilding domestic manufacturing capacity.

For companies like Fairbanks Morse Defense, that shift represents both an opportunity and a responsibility.

“The investment coming into the maritime industrial base is extremely encouraging,” Pykett said. “But it’s important that those investments actually flow through to U.S. suppliers and manufacturers.”

By expanding its technology portfolio and manufacturing capabilities, FMD aims to play a central role in that revitalization.

“We want to lean in and solve the problems our customers face,” Pykett said. “Whether that’s additive manufacturing, robotics, or AI, the goal is the same: deliver equipment and services faster, more reliably and more efficiently.”

For the Navy and Coast Guard fleets that rely on those systems, the payoff is straightforward—less time in the shipyard, more time at sea.

And for FMD, it marks the next stage in an evolution from legacy engine builder to technology-driven sustainment partner for the world’s most demanding maritime operators.