This funding opportunity will support the research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of smart manufacturing technologies that can contribute to a resilient, responsive, leading-edge and efficient manufacturing sector that delivers the technologies needed for the nation’s clean energy transition. Smart manufacturing can help the manufacturing community reduce manufacturing costs and accelerate time-to-market by illuminating the connection between in process manufacturing data and ultimate performance characteristics of final products.

It is anticipated that this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) may include the following Areas of Interest:

• Area of Interest 1: Smart Manufacturing for a Circular Economy – Smart manufacturing technologies have the potential to increase the effectiveness of Re-X (recycling, repairing, remanufacturing, etc.) supply chains, creating a more circular economy. Of interest for this topic are projects that will use smart manufacturing solutions to address three main circular economy opportunities. First, smart identification, sorting, and grading of materials can help to streamline the identification of feedstock streams that are of consistent and acceptable quality for recycling. Second, smart manufacturing techniques can be used to inform various aspects of repair and remanufacturing, ranging from initial design to component monitoring to disassembly guidance. Finally, smart techniques can be used to improve availability and transparency of data across supply chains to enhance market visibility of secondary materials and support accurate life cycle assessments (LCAs).
• Area of Interest 2: Smart Manufacturing for Tooling and Equipment – This topic is designed to develop and demonstrate broadly applicable smart manufacturing technologies focusing digitalization and digital twins for tooling and equipment that can advance manufacturing processes and strengthen supply chains for production of sustainable transportation and clean energy technologies. Successful projects would make tooling and equipment faster and more economical to produce, and/or enable new functionalities. For this area of interest, teams should include members across the supply chain, as well as technology adopters.
• Area of Interest 3: Smart Manufacturing for High Performance Materials – Smart manufacturing approaches can help to accelerate materials advances and corresponding process innovation, ensuring stable, domestic high-performance material supply chains. Of particular interest are manufacturing processes and fabrication techniques for platform materials for the clean energy transition, such as high-conductivity materials and materials for harsh service conditions. Approaches could include machine learning, physics-informed models, analytical models, or combinations thereof. Methods for tuning manufacturing process parameters to achieve optimal component designs tailored according to application requirements will be encouraged.
• Area of Interest 4: Smart Technologies for Sustainable and Competitive US Mining – The aim of this topic is to increase the sustainability and competitiveness of domestic mining operations for critical minerals and materials through smart technologies, including automation and advanced sensors, controls, and diagnostics. The smart technologies would be used for early detection of environmental hazards–such as emissions, water quality, and air quality–as well as to ensure safety, reliability, efficiency, sustainability, and profitability of mining operations. The data collected and analyzed by implementing smart manufacturing technologies also have the potential to create more open data sharing to identify by-products of mining operations that could be used for another productive purpose, rather discarding them as waste.

This notice of intent (NOI) is issued so that interested parties are aware of DOE’s intention to issue this FOA in the near term. All the information contained in this NOI is subject to change.