Government employees can design basic stuff (and some not-so-basic stuff) and 3d print it in their machine shop, or send the design to a machine shop to be made

Government employees can design basic stuff (and some not-so-basic stuff) and 3d print it in their machine shop, or send the design to a machine shop to be made, rather than sending in a requisition for purchasing commercial CAD software, waiting 6-12 months for purchasing and legal approval etc. to design basic stuff. There are a million things that need pretty basic brackets or adapters that break or rust and you could get a machine up and running in a day or two by designing it yourself, rather than going through a bidding process, purchase order, invoice etc. Maybe the ABS 3D printed part will only last a week, but at least your million dollar machine is up and running while the metal part is on order. You can cut out a ton of bureaucracy. There are a lot of groups named "F*ck that, I'll just print it" showing how they fixed or modify one simple part that doesn't have a lot of stress (less than 100lbs) but they'd have to throw out or stop using otherwise.