As a recent article in DefenseNews highlighted, the U.S. Army’s ambition to produce 10,000 drones per month has encountered a critical and familiar bottleneck. The challenge isn’t proving the technology works. It’s turning a successful prototype into a repeatable and rapid production line.
The real test isn’t innovation; it’s industrialization at speed.
From Design to Scale: Where Programs Win or Stall
There’s a vast difference between building something once and building it thousands of times, quickly and consistently. In defense programs, this is often where momentum is lost, and timelines slip.
At TT Electronics, we’ve seen this gap up close. Across multiple modernization programs, three areas repeatedly determine whether production ramps up smoothly or gets stuck in the mud.
1. Power Electronics: Designing for Scale from Day One
The battlefield is evolving rapidly: higher power demands, smarter systems, extended ranges, and compressed timelines. Long, iterative design cycles simply don’t fit this reality anymore.
The key is designing for scale from the outset. That means selecting components, materials, and manufacturing processes that work not only in an engineering lab but in high-volume production without triggering redesign cycles that can delay delivery by months.
In power conversion and control systems this becomes especially critical. Off-the-shelf solutions often don’t meet next-gen program requirements. Conversely, fully custom designs can take 18 months or more to qualify. By partnering with a power electronics engineering and manufacturing company like TT Electronics, defense contractors can leverage modular IP and proven architectures that not only enables prototype speed, but ensures manufacturing scalability, reduced risk, and accelerated time to field. TT Electronics modular solutions like our recent launched AX-FORCE Bi-directional and ALTITUDE-DC High Voltage converters enable a faster route to market.
2. CCAs & Electronics: Engineering the Hand-Off to Accelerate Ramp-Up
A program’s ability to scale is often determined at the handoff between engineering and production. If that transition is seamless, the entire supply chain moves faster.
That’s why Design for Manufacture (DFM) and Design for Supply Chain principles must be applied early in the design cycle. Collaborating with contract manufacturers’ engineering and procurement teams during design - not after - ensures that the design can be built at scale, for the life of the program.
At TT Electronics we operate a dedicated New Product Introduction (NPI) operation at our electronics manufacturing facility in Cleveland Ohio with specialized equipment and teams embedded alongside production lines. This approach enables fast-turn PCBA prototypes in as little as two weeks and, more importantly, a clean, confident handoff to full-rate production. It eliminates late-stage rework and accelerates delivery.
3. Electromagnetics: Building for Harsh Environments at Scale
Electromagnetics are another area where scaling can expose hidden production complexities. Prototypes for inductors, transformers, and magnetic assemblies are often hand-wound using specialty materials and artisanal processes. That works for ten units. It rarely works for 10,000.
When those same components must perform in extreme temperatures, under vibration, shock, and EMI, every design choice such as material selection, winding technique, potting, tolerances, magnifies under production pressure. Without repeatable test protocol and qualified sourcing built in early, scaling can grind to a halt just when programs need to accelerate.
Designing electromagnetics with manufacturability and environmental survivability in mind from the outset is the only way to achieve both speed and mission-critical reliability at volume, ethos that we work to in our magnetics production facilities in Kansas City, Minneapolis as well as in the UK and Malaysia.
Why This Matters Now
Defense programs are under unprecedented pressure to deliver capability at speed and scale and in modern conflict, the side that can scale production faster and more resiliently often shapes the outcome.
Partnering with manufacturing experts who can bridge the gap between prototype and production is key. Robust integration between engineering, supply chain, and production from day one. Whether you’re scaling drones, power systems, or mission electronics, success isn’t measured by the first unit, it’s measured by how efficiently you can build the 10,000th without rethinking the entire process.
If you want your next defense program to scale without delay, start planning for the 10,000th unit as early as the first.
Discuss your next program with our team: https://www.ttelectronics.com/contact-us/manufacturing/