Defense Manufacturing Communities Support Program

The Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program, authorized under Section 846 of the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (PL 115-232), is designed to undertake long-term investments in critical skills, facilities, research and development, and small business support in order to strengthen the national security innovation and manufacturing base. The program also seeks to ensure complementarity of those communities so designated with existing Defense Manufacturing Institutes. Defense Manufacturing Institutes are manufacturing ecosystems established since 2014, with common manufacturing and design challenges revolving around specific technologies. To date, the Department of Defense has established nine (9) Manufacturing Institutes - https://www.dodmantech.mil/Manufacturing-Innovation-Institutes/. (For complete roster of all existing manufacturing institutes, see link at https://www.manufacturingusa.com/institutes.)

For full details on eligibility see attached Final Federal Funding Opportunity notice (.pdf format) attached here. Proposals for designation as a Defense Manufacturing Community must be submitted by a “Lead Organization” on behalf of a regional manufacturing consortium as part of the proposal being invited. A “lead organization” may be any of the entities identified in the attached NOFO (Section C). For the purposes of this announcement a “consortium” is a collection of associated assets focused on common challenge in defense manufacturing or defense-related technology. These consortia represent active networks of similar, synergistic or complementary organizations engaged in a particular defense manufacturing industry sector or vertical, with active channels for business transactions, communications, dialogue and workforce development, that share specialized infrastructure, labor markets and services. While consortia are generally located within a specific and geographically-bounded region, this does not preclude the inclusion of a member or organization with significant and relevant capabilities and capacities which are outside of the geographic region of the majority of the consortia members, but which nevertheless complement the work of the consortia.