Here's an idea: what if the US military just had in-house manufacturing capability and could build soap dispensers (or anything else) to specification at basically the cost of the materials? The factory, the staff, and everything else would be a built-in sunk cost, because they're already in operation.
The analogy here would be hiring a software consulting firm to make every little one-line-of-code change to your website, instead of just having a full-time in-house developer who could make small one-time changes and maintenance at no additional cost.
People complain about government employees, and continually insist that private industry can do it better.
It would almost certainly be cheaper and more effective to do it in house. But instead, in-house capabilities are continually decreasing. The actual government agencies are reduced to supervisory roles.
Stories like this usually result in even more hatred for government employees and more outsourcing.
The analogy here would be hiring a software consulting firm to make every little one-line-of-code change to your website, instead of just having a full-time in-house developer who could make small one-time changes and maintenance at no additional cost.