America Makes Announces Manufacturing Challenge Project Call

America Makes, in cooperation with its Manufacturing Innovation Institutes and OSD ManTech, is offering a project call of up to $1.5M 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 $0.5M.

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.

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 United States that represents one of two operational environments – cold weather (i.e., 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. 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, February 6, 2023.

The seven 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. 

America Makes will host a webinar at 11 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, January 17, to discuss the project call and answer any questions. Registration is not necessary. Join the webinar HERE.  

More information, details, and participant guidelines for the DoD PoN Manufacturing Challenge can be found on the America Makes website HERE.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.

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