ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The US Department of War (DOW) has today announced winners for the 2025 Maintenance Innovation Challenge (MIC), a competition that seeks innovative solutions with potential to improve DOW sustainment operations with the goal of improving materiel readiness.
The Overall Winner is Grey Gecko Real-Time Inspection Tool (GRIT), submitted by Gray Gecko, LLC. The People’s Choice Award goes to Advanced Manufacturing Competitive Advantage Pathfinder, submitted by the US Marine Corps’ Marine Depot Maintenance Command. The winners were selected at the annual DOW Maintenance Symposium running this week in Phoenix, AZ. NCMS presented both groups of winners with a check for $50,000, which can be applied to in-kind support to enable them to conduct further demonstrations for DOW representatives.
The Grey Gecko Real-Time Inspection Tool offers a rugged, handheld, battery-powered infrared imager that “sees through paint,” detecting corrosion, cracks, voids, and moisture beneath coatings up to 25 mils thick without the need for chemicals, PPE, or external power. It delivers live, high-resolution images on a tablet along with customizable metadata for instant report generation. A patented image-stitching algorithm expands inspection areas from ~1,200 mm² to 11,500 mm², dramatically increasing coverage. GRIT cuts corrosion-related downtime by about 25% and inspection labor by greater than 50%.
The Advanced Manufacturing Competitive Advantage Pathfinder delivers a Digital Manufacturing Exchange that offers an accredited digital backbone for transmitting technical data packages and IP-protected manufacturing data, enabling point-of-need production of repair parts via 3D printers and other manufacturing assets. Its secure architecture protects IP through encryption and access control while incorporating a built-in remuneration model—similar to purchasing music online—so every OEM use is tracked and compensated.
For more information on the MIC, including details on all of this year’s 59 MIC entries, view https://ncms.org/maintenance-innovation-challenge.
About NCMS
NCMS is a cross-industry technology development consortium dedicated to improving the competitiveness and strength of the US industrial base. NCMS leverages a network of industry, government, and university partners to develop, demonstrate, and transition innovative technologies efficiently, with less risk and lower cost. The NCMS network benefits from an accelerated progression of idea creation through execution. Learn more at www.ncms.org, at NCMS’s LinkedIn, and at @ncmsmfg.
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