America Makes Posts Project Call for Defense Manufacturing Challenge

America Makes, in cooperation with the Manufacturing Innovation Institutes and OSD ManTech, is offering a project call of up to $1.5 million to fund multiple projects under the MII Point of Need (PoN) Challenge from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Individual project budgets are not to exceed $500,000.

The DoD PoN Manufacturing Challenge Project Call addresses dual-use applications that are responsive to specific needs of the DoD and the domestic manufacturing industry. This project call is focused on a single Special Topic Area (STA) derived from the DoD advanced manufacturing community and contains seven challenges on PoN manufacturing applications of interest to the DoD.

As additive manufacturing (AM) continues to play a role in technological advances within the aerospace and defense industry, America Makes members are encouraged to submit innovative manufacturing solutions that can be deployed close to the warfighter. Solutions must be designed to operate within challenging operational environments as the reach of U.S. forces is global. Technologies will be demonstrated at a location chosen by the DoD within the continental U.S. that represents one of two operational environments — cold weather (for example, arctic type) or hot/humid.

Project teams can propose against one or more of the seven challenges and must include America Makes as an execution partner.

Please note this is a two-step proposal process. Step 1 includes a five-page concept paper and a quad chart and Step 2 is an invitation-only overview of presentations. The deadline for submission of the concept packet is Monday, Feb. 6, 2023.

The 7 challenges include:

• Build the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Challenge
• Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) Challenge
• Warfighter Medical, Health and Nutrition Challenge
• Power Challenge
• Cyber Challenge
• Staying in the Fight Challenge
• Other

Each challenge is based on a class of supply. Projects shall demonstrate the technology that could address the scenario and be deployed and performed in the required operational environment.

To be eligible, all participants must be America Makes members. For more information, details and participant guidelines for the DoD PoN Manufacturing Challenge, visit americamakes.

• Read about the America Makes 2022 Project Awards for winning projects that address the evolving challenges of the domestic supply chain and offer progressive solutions.
• Learn about the America Makes roundtable to discuss workforce development with the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
• Read about winners of the 2021 America Makes Rapid Innovation Call who received funding from the Air Force Research Laboratory to help fill critical gaps in additive manufacturing technology.