Reference. Attachment Appendix E. National Imperative for Industrial Skills Initiative: Background and Acquisition Operational Concept The Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) Program (10 U.S.C. - 2508) office within the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy (ODASD(IndPol)) established the - Cornerstone Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) with Army Contracting Command - Rock Island (ACC-RI). It was created to establish a flexible, enduring and broad-based public-private consortium focused on strategic strengthening of the U.S. Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base. Cornerstone provides the acquisition framework and mechanisms supporting prototype projects using OTAs under the authorities of 10 U.S.C. - 2371b and represents an important platform to address the industrial base risks and mandates addressed in the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and Presidential Executive Order 13806 and its associated interagency report. On or after 7 February 2020, ACC-RI, under the direction of the IBAS Program Office in ODASD(IndPol), and with program management support provided by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command - Chemical Biological Center (CCDC-CBC) IBAS/Cornerstone Program Management Team, intends to issue a single, overarching Cornerstone Initiative Request (CIR) entitled the - National Imperative for Industrial Skills. This CIR will be issued only via email to Cornerstone consortium members with a separate supporting public Broad Area Announcement (BAA) issue to increase participation. The BAA will function as a standing, multi-year mechanism to solicit proposals leading to the award of multiple prototype projects intended to improve the nation's capacity to recruit, train, and deliver sufficient numbers of workers with industrial and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills to meet Department of Defense (DoD) Supply Chain (SC) requirements. A major specified task within the initiative is the ability to identify deltas within the DoD SC in order to ensure alignment with workforce requirements. The CIR will solicit Quad-charts and whitepapers from the Cornerstone Consortium addressing one or more of the CIR's stated objectives. On a regular cycle, the Government intends to evaluate submitted Quad-charts/whitepapers and invite selected Offerors to develop full proposals for subsequent evaluation and potential award of fixed amount or expenditure-based OTA prototype projects with incremental payments made upon completion of specific milestones. The remaining paragraphs of this Special Notice provide a brief overview of the National Imperative for Industrial Skills Initiative. The DoD's ability to produce and maintain the systems required by the nation's modern military forces is threatened by the lack of skilled industrial and STEM workers. Defense suppliers face critical shortages (i.e., up to tens of thousands of unfilled positions) in many areas including, but not limited to (in alphabetical order): additive manufacturing; CNC machining (metals, composites and optical materials); composites specialties; digital manufacturing methods and processes (e.g., use of CAD/CAM, digital enterprise resource planning (ERP) and product lifecycle management (PLM) systems, including production planning/operations/work instruction systems, production/machine controls and cybersecurity for industrial control systems, etc.) and other Industry 4.0 applications; metrology/quality assurance; microelectronics; precision optics; shipbuilding trades (ship and pipe fitting, metal forming, specialty welding, etc.); and welding/joining, especially for specialty materials.. While the CIR supporting this initiative is planned for release to all Cornerstone members, the long-term objective is to create a robust and persistent collaborative community aligned with Cornerstone Sector 16 (Industrial Base and Manufacturing Skills), to include: academia (broadly, across all levels, disciplines and activities), industry (including small businesses and non-traditional defense contractors), governmental and quasi-governmental activities at local, state and federal levels) including economic development activities, federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) and other research laboratories and centers, and public-private partnerships created from among the above entities. The IBAS Program Office believes that activating and maintaining this sector-focused community will result in better informed, more integrated, better targeted and more executable submissions/proposals against the urgent needs that the National Imperative for Industrial Skills Initiative is designed to address. The overarching BAA will serve as a standing solicitation for multiple projects and thus will not have a predetermined closure date. The Government intends to evaluate Quad-charts and whitepapers in order to determine the invitation for full proposals on a recurring, at least quarterly basis. In addition to the overarching CIR/BAA, the Government retains the right to issue specific project calls (subordinate to this CIR) for critical needs not addressed by received responses. Such project calls will include specific instructions concerning response deadlines, supplemental page limits, formatting instructions, and evaluation processes and criteria, as needed. The Government reserves the right to modify the overarching CIR/BAA as required, award OTA(s) in the best interest of the government, to include re-competing the requirement if needed, and close and/or re-issue the CIR. The period of performance (PoP) will vary by project/agreement. Project PoPs and any established option periods will be based on project requirements and established through negotiations between Offerors/awardees and the Government. Exercise of any option periods will be at the sole discretion, and in the best interest, of the Government. The CIR for National Imperative will be communicated and released via email to the Cornerstone consortium and companies with pending applications. The associated BAA will be issued in publicly. Entities are required to have begun the membership application process for their quad-charts, whitepapers and invited full proposals to be reviewed. Entities must be members of the Cornerstone consortium, with a signed Cornerstone Consortium Management Agreement, to be awarded an OTA under this CIR. Prospective members may obtain Cornerstone registration information by visiting the Cornerstone website: http://ibasp-public.ria.army.mil/cornerstone/ Interested parties should stay alert for any changes that may be published to this notice. Please email all questions to the following mailbox:
contact@example.gov NOTE: This Special Notice is for planning purposes only and does not constitute a CIR or an obligation on behalf of the U.S. Government. Issuance of this Special Notice is not a guarantee of a future CIR or an award and is not a commitment of any kind by the Government.
