Smart Factories, New Ammo: How a Tech Alliance Aims to Fix a Shell Shortage

CARROLLTON, Texas and OTTAWA, ON – March 18, 2026 – In a move aimed directly at one of the Western world's most pressing defense vulnerabilities, industrial technology firm UNION Technologies and Canadian defense company NALAGX Corporation today announced a strategic partnership to overhaul the production of 155mm artillery ammunition. The collaboration will integrate UNION's software-driven factory systems with NALAGX's expertise in energetics to create a more resilient and high-volume North American supply chain for the critical munition.

The announcement comes as allied nations grapple with severely depleted stockpiles and a defense industrial base struggling to meet the voracious demand for artillery shells, a reality laid bare by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. By combining advanced manufacturing software with the essential supply of explosive materials, the partnership seeks to replace antiquated production methods with a modern, data-driven approach built for speed, traceability, and scale.

A Production Crisis Years in the Making

The demand for 155mm artillery rounds has skyrocketed since 2022, exposing decades of underinvestment and fragility in the allied defense industrial base. Consumption rates in recent conflicts have far outpaced production, forcing the United States and its NATO partners to draw down their own strategic reserves to critical levels. In response, the U.S. Army set an ambitious goal to increase production to 100,000 shells per month, but progress has been slow, with current output hovering around 40,000 rounds monthly as of mid-2025.

Industry analysts point to a perfect storm of challenges. Many existing manufacturing processes are labor-intensive and rely on technology that is, in some cases, nearly a century old. These legacy systems are not only inefficient but also create significant hurdles for quality control and rapid scaling. Furthermore, the supply chain is riddled with bottlenecks, most notably in the production of energetics—the propellants and explosives that power the shells. A global shortage of key ingredients like nitrocellulose has created a situation where even if shell bodies can be forged, they cannot be filled and finished.

This production gap represents a significant strategic risk. As defense think tanks have warned, in a potential large-scale conflict, Western forces could exhaust key munitions within days, not weeks. The challenge is no longer just about stockpiling weapons, but about creating an industrial base capable of surging production on demand.

A Software-Defined Solution

At the heart of the new partnership is UNION Technologies' innovative 'Factories-as-a-Stockpile' model. The Texas-based company is not simply building another factory; it is engineering a new kind of production ecosystem driven by a proprietary software stack. This approach treats the factory itself as a strategic asset, one that is automated, data-governed, and capable of continuous improvement through artificial intelligence.

UNION’s system relies on three core technologies: Faction, a factory operating system; Fabric, a secure autonomous manufacturing control system; and Factorial, a site intelligence engine. Together, they create a 'neural network' across the production line, where every machine and process is tracked, monitored, and optimized in real-time. This enables end-to-end traceability from raw steel to finished shell, a critical factor for quality control in mission-critical manufacturing.

"Deterrence and Surge Capacity require advanced production systems," said Garrett Unclebach, Chief Executive Officer of UNION Technologies. "As the munitions ecosystem scales, manufacturers need stronger linkage between energetics, factory engineering, and software-enabled control. UNION delivers traceable, software-defined factory systems built for mission-critical production. NALAGX strengthens the energetics infrastructure layer. Together, we're aligning on interfaces and standards that make output more resilient and repeatable."

UNION's first fully automated facility in Dallas, which aims to produce 60,000 shells per month by late 2026, is designed to directly address the current production shortfall with a fundamentally different, technology-first philosophy.

Strengthening the Continental Supply Chain

While UNION provides the advanced manufacturing brain, NALAGX Corporation provides the industrial muscle and critical materials. The Ottawa-based company's role in the partnership is to secure the supply of 155mm energetics and support factory engineering, directly addressing the propellant bottleneck that has plagued the industry.

This cross-border collaboration is a deliberate effort to build an integrated and resilient North American defense industrial base. By vertically integrating the supply of energetics from Canada with the advanced manufacturing in the United States, the partnership aims to reduce reliance on fragile global supply chains and bureaucratic hurdles that have slowed down production efforts elsewhere.

"North American defence industrial base depends on integrated supply chains," said Patrick C. Gagnon, Chief Executive Officer of NALAGX. "Canada and the United States share a long history of coordinated manufacturing and infrastructure investment. Our work with UNION is designed to deepen that partnership and strengthen execution across the entire continental supply chain."

This strategy aligns with recent moves by the Pentagon to award contracts to Canadian companies to bolster 155mm production, recognizing that allied security depends on a continental, not just national, approach to industrial readiness. The partnership between UNION and NALAGX is a prime example of this strategy in action, creating a more robust pathway from raw chemical precursors to a finished, field-ready artillery round.

By aligning on technical standards, quality expectations, and operational visibility from the outset, the two companies are building a foundation for a new era of defense manufacturing. This model, which pairs cutting-edge software with foundational industrial capacity, could provide a blueprint for how the U.S. and its allies can overcome the 'elegant decay' of their defense industrial base and re-arm for an era of renewed global competition.