The Office of Advanced Manufacturing (OAM) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) intends to announce a competition for eligible Manufacturing USA Institutes to develop actionable roadmaps for transitioning technologies to market. NIST intends that through this competition, institutes will identify and document the capabilities and resources needed to de-risk the scale-up of advanced manufacturing technologies from pilot to full commercial integration in the U.S. industrial base. The expected competition will seek to enable applicants to work with critical stakeholders to envision how a Manufacturing USA institute can achieve full adoption readiness and industry uptake of institute-developed technology platforms. This NOI is provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop proposals and collaborations among critical stakeholders.

This notice serves to announce that the U.S. Department of Commerce, through NIST, intends to open a competition to develop industry-focused, actionable technology transition roadmaps to move from pilot-scale to commercial-scale manufacturing.

The competition will seek to enable eligible Manufacturing USA institutes to identify existing gaps and solutions needed to encourage private-sector investments for scaling institute-developed manufacturing technologies for commercial adoption. NIST intends that the applications must identify specific market drivers, demand signals, or critical manufacturing needs with potential to strengthen the global competitiveness of the U.S. industrial base. NIST anticipates that potential applicants will detail how scaling and commercializing technology developed by the Manufacturing USA institute will achieve meaningful and quantifiable impacts on domestic manufacturing efficiency and productivity. NIST expects that the competition will ask applicants to outline essential infrastructure, resources, capabilities, and partnerships necessary for institutes to act as effective navigators for scale-up and deployment of advanced manufacturing innovations, accelerating impacts. NIST intends that this competition will encourage applicants to envision how NIST laboratories and programs can work with institutes to demonstrate and validate new technologies, create effective commercialization pathways, and assist vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers of all sizes in implementing advanced manufacturing at scale.