Notice of Intent: Smart Manufacturing Technologies for Material and Process Innovation Funding Opportunity Announcement | DE FOA 0003328

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0003328

The Notice of Intent for the "Smart Manufacturing Technologies for Material and Process Innovation" Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), numbered DE FOA 0003328, is an early notification from the U.S. Department of Energy's Golden Field Office that a future competitive funding opportunity is planned. A Notice of Intent typically signals that a full FOA is forthcoming and gives prospective applicants a chance to start preparing, building partnerships, and aligning project concepts with the anticipated program direction before the official application requirements are released. In this case, the topic area points to investments in smart manufacturing approaches that improve how materials are developed, processed, and integrated into manufacturing workflows, with an emphasis on innovation that advances energy-related goals.

The opportunity is categorized as discretionary funding and is expected to use a Cooperative Agreement as the funding instrument. In practical terms, a Cooperative Agreement usually indicates that the federal agency expects to have substantial involvement during the project period, such as collaborating on technical direction, milestones, data sharing expectations, or programmatic reviews. This differs from a traditional grant where federal involvement is typically lighter after award. The funding activity category is Energy, and the associated CFDA (now commonly referred to under the Assistance Listings system) number is 81.086, which is commonly tied to DOE financial assistance activities in advanced manufacturing and related areas.

Eligibility is listed as "Unrestricted," which suggests that a broad range of applicant types may be able to apply once the full FOA is released. That can include, depending on the final rules, entities such as companies, universities, national laboratories (often as partners), nonprofit organizations, and state or local government entities. However, the Notice of Intent explicitly notes that additional eligibility information will be provided in the upcoming FOA, meaning applicants should not assume specifics like cost-share requirements, restrictions on foreign participation, teaming arrangements, or applicant type limitations until the full announcement is published.

Key administrative fields in the notice provide only limited insight into eventual award size and volume. The listed award ceiling is 2, but without units or context it is not possible to interpret reliably from the Notice of Intent alone (for example, it could be a placeholder value, or it could reflect an upper limit in millions of dollars in the final FOA, but that is not stated here). The expected awards field is shown as 0, which is common in early notices and does not necessarily mean that no awards will be made; it often means the figure has not been finalized at the notice stage. The original closing date is shown as 2024-06-28, which may refer to the Notice of Intent posting window or an anticipated timeline marker, but the actual application deadline and submission instructions will be established in the full FOA.

From a technical standpoint, the title indicates a focus on smart manufacturing technologies applied to material and process innovation. In DOE manufacturing contexts, "smart manufacturing" generally implies the use of advanced sensing, data analytics, digital twins, machine learning or AI-enabled process control, high-performance computing, automation, and connected systems to optimize manufacturing processes. When paired with "material and process innovation," this often includes work that accelerates materials development cycles, improves process yield and quality, reduces energy intensity, minimizes scrap and emissions, increases throughput, and enables new manufacturing methods or product performance through better control and understanding of process-structure-property relationships. Depending on the final FOA scope, relevant projects could range from novel process monitoring and control for high-temperature or high-precision manufacturing, to integrated computational and experimental frameworks for rapid materials qualification, to factory-scale implementations that demonstrate measurable efficiency or productivity gains.

Because the published text is only a Notice of Intent, it does not yet provide the elements applicants usually need to build a compliant submission, such as specific topic areas, required technical metrics, allowable project durations, cost-share percentages (if any), merit review criteria, budget categories, data management and reporting requirements, or teaming and subcontracting rules. The Notice of Intent mainly serves as a heads-up: interested organizations should monitor for the release of the full FOA, begin outlining a project concept aligned with smart manufacturing for materials and processes, identify potential partners to cover needed expertise (manufacturing operations, materials science, controls, data systems, validation and demonstration), and prepare for the more detailed eligibility and submission guidance that will follow in the official funding opportunity announcement.

• The Golden Field Office in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Notice of Intent: Smart Manufacturing Technologies for Material and Process Innovation Funding Opportunity Announcement" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.086.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-04-15.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-06-28. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $2.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

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