HELENA — The Montana Army National Guard has become the first National Guard in the nation to bring a mobile engineering lab to its force.
"I can't tell you how many times a solder's been in the field and said, 'I just wish I had a tool, a widget, a thing,' and has an idea that would make their life so much easier," said Scott Abplanalp, the CMI2 Pathfinder Warfighter Innovation Chief for Montana.
The new Mobile Immediate Need Engineering Resource (MINER) is for that.
When soldiers need something, they can work with the on-site engineer in the lab to design the product.
The product can be 3D printed or manufactured through cutting or milling.
Abplanalp said, "To come up with a solution in hours rather than taking months or years. This is a huge resource to be able to solve those quick wins."
The Montana Army National Guard also plans to renovate facilities to create a cold-weather experimentation chamber.
"All year long, even when it's a hundred degrees outside, we can simulate those arctic temperatures where things are normally breaking, and we can put it inside of the chamber, test its limits, see where something works or doesn't work," said Abplanalp.
The mobile lab is a partnership between the Montana Army National Guard, the State of Montana, Montana University Systems, and industry support.
The lab and engineer are funded through the Department of Defense.
"The biggest picture of this is it helps us solve the army and the nation's biggest problems. It may seem that it starts on a small level, but those are problems that we need to solve and we'll solve them quickly," said Brigadier General James Wilkins, the director of joint staff for the Montana Army National Guard.
MINER will be up and running in the next few weeks, and soldiers are ready to use it.
Wilkins said, "There were three soldiers in there, and their eyes were huge. They're already reaching out and touching stuff and saying, 'I have an idea.' That is what's going to help us defend this county in the future."
