NORFOLK, Va. — A new fabrication laboratory, or Fab Lab, set to open in April will help East-coast sailorsmaintainers keep ships running, using cutting-edge technology. High-tech equipment such as Laser and vinyl cutters, routers, and 3-D printers will be used to quickly manufacture high-demand, low-supply parts on the spot.

But Officials at Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center said the lab will, more importantly, harness the inventive power of deckplate sailors.

"If you go walk the deckplate right now, every crusty chief and department head is going to tell you that sailors today don't come with solutions, they just come with problems," said Lt. Todd Coursey, the Fab Lab's project officer. "Part of that is the culture. We are trying to reinvigorate the inquisitive, troubleshooting mind back into the petty officer."

Coursey, who prefers to call the lab funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-funded lab a "maker space," said the facility is geared toward sailors who have an idea that might make worklife easier or more efficient. Workshops will help sailors turn their ideas into a digital design, then use the tools on-hand to build turn that design into prototypes that can be put to the test. Sailors will have the help of on-site engineers, who will add feedback and validate the concepts.

This is just one of many endeavors by Navy brass to b​uild petty officer expertise and to find solutions at a time that spare parts are in short supply. expertise back in the rank and file, and harness the power of the expertise. Deep ship manpower cuts Crew cuts caused by the failed optimal manning initiative in the early 2000s also gutted diminished sailor-basedintermediate maintenance centers and dramatically reduced the expertise among sailors. as the Navy dramatically cut maintenance monies and funneled the rest into corrective maintenance. The Navy is working to boost that expertise once again and hopes, by launching the so-called "Fab Lab," to inspire deckplate up solutions. with restoring much of its predictive maintenance, and placing it in the hands of petty officers. The goal is that by the time they don khakis, the chief will be an expert in operating as well as maintaining the system.

Intermediate maintenance activities like MARMC will provide an increasing amount of training, certifications, and journeymen programs. As the "Fab Lab" starts upassimilates into the effort, officials will initially focus on the roughly 750 sailors assigned to MARMC and later will host workshops that teach use of various modeling tools, molding machines, and millwork.

In addition to state-of-the-art machinery, sailors will have some cool tools at their disposal. The lab is stocked with resistors, capacitors and the like, and can build flexible circuit cards. It even has memory wire: Heat it beyond 900 degrees and you can form it into a desired shape. Cool it down and it is flexible once again. Hit it with an electrical charge and it reforms the original shape (yes, just like the Batman cape in the movie "Batman Begins").

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is funding the $100,000 lab, which is based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Bits and Atoms. The effort is part of DARPA's Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach Two, or MENTOR2 program, which aims to reduce logistics supply chain costs and improve parts availability.

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