Tour offers rare behind-the-scenes look

Sandia provided industry visitors a sneak peek at the latest construction progress at the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation, or CAMINO.

CAMINO is a Sandia-led capability that ties advanced manufacturing equipment across several facilities, enabling subject matter experts to expedite early design development cycles through prototyping, while also developing new materials and manufacturing techniques to meet emerging needs for mission applications.

The hard hat tour welcomed more than 30 people from Commercial Real Estate Women of New Mexico for a behind-the-scenes look at the 20,000-square-foot facility in the Science and Technology Park.

Advanced manufacturing hub

Sandia’s Erica Douglas, a project lead for CAMINO and a senior manager for advanced materials and manufacturing within the Center for Material, Physical and Chemical Sciences, helped lead the tour.

“The goal of CAMINO is to be a hub in the nuclear security enterprise for advanced manufacturing,” Erica said. “CAMINO will position and prepare us for emerging threats by meeting rapid design needs for production and letting us do technology transfer much faster.”

Advanced manufacturing helps accelerate the pace of design cycle iterations and simultaneously mature knowledge on manufacturability and assembly. Rapid learning through advanced manufacturing reduces delays later in the production cycle.

Fail fast, learn fast

Erica showed the group examples of 3D-printed items and explained some benefits of advanced manufacturing.

“As the lead systems integrator for the nuclear security enterprise and a design agency for nonnuclear components, many times we’re looking at designing new parts,” Erica said. “With traditional manufacturing methods, you only get a few chances to experiment with designs before going to production. With advanced manufacturing techniques, you can have hardware in hand in less than a week, compared to waiting up to 18 months.”

Having hardware in hand more quickly helps identify issues with those parts earlier in the process and allows teams to go back to the drawing board if needed, significantly reducing potential delays later in the process.

“Having the design engineers and manufacturing experts work together enables us to refine designs much faster. It reduces our risk in the long run,” Erica said.

She explained that Sandia has worked closely with AIC General Contractor, FBT Architect and EEA Consulting Engineers to ensure the existing facility can support the weight of the heavy equipment that will be installed, accommodate the types of parts that will be manufactured and provide sufficient power for operations.

Materials discovery

CAMINO will also play an important role in materials discovery.

“Advanced materials discovery and development work is critical for national security as we anticipate and prepare for emerging needs,” Erica said. “One area of research is to look at new metal alloys that can strengthen material properties without adding weight. That helps us meet both requirements for nuclear deterrence systems: strength and low weight.”

Data collection is key, and it is anticipated that upwards of 10 terabytes of data will be collected per month at CAMINO.

“We want to ensure we have equipment capable of pulling data streams and doing data computations,” Erica said. “We’re also interested to see where artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities make sense.”

Erica said one potential application for AI involves sensors that could alert people on the manufacturing floor in real time if there’s a printing anomaly with the part they’re making.

She added that there’s still a lot of work ahead to fully integrate AI into advanced manufacturing.

Collaboration center

A benefit of having one of CAMINO’s facilities outside of Kirtland Air Force Base is the potential boost to collaboration.

“We’re looking at fostering the design and production agency relationships, as well as relationships with industry and academia to help us out,” Erica said.

Sandia already has experience fostering external relationships through facilities outside of Kirtland Air Force Base. The Advanced Materials Laboratory has been on the University of New Mexico Campus since the 1990s.

“The experimental lab space at the Advanced Materials Laboratory brings in visitors and multi-disciplinary collaborators from around the world,” Erica said.

Within the last year, Sandia and the Kansas City National Security Campus New Mexico Operations launched the Rapid Prototyping Maker Space. It’s serving as a pilot for CAMINO.

Erica said all that work and experience will play a vital role in shaping future collaborations with CAMINO.

Tour reaction

The Commercial Real Estate Women, or CREW, participants said they were pleased with what they learned on the tour.

“Seeing CAMINO in person helps connect the dots between the concept and the execution,” said Genieve Posen, president of CREW New Mexico. “You can’t get that from looking at floor plans. Walking us through it is really the benefit of these hard hat tours.”

CAMINO was the second hard hat tour for CREW New Mexico this year.

“It also sparked a lot of conversations about our role in advanced manufacturing,” Posen said. “It’s an important sector in our local real estate industry.”

CAMINO is tentatively scheduled to begin operations in 2026 with about 20 Sandia employees.