Cornerstone Special Notice-Nanostructured Materials

Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC), Rock Island, IL, on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy (DASD IP) via its Manufacturing Resiliency and Assurance (MRA) Office, and Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) Program (10 U.S.C. - 2508), in conjunction with Army Contracting Command - Rock Island (ACC-RI), manages the Cornerstone Other Transaction Agreement (OTA). Cornerstone was created to "Assess and Strengthen the Manufacturing Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States." The U.S. Army Contracting Command - Rock Island, on behalf of U.S. Army Research Development and Engineering Command's (RDECOM) Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), intends to issue a competitive Cornerstone Initiative Request (CIR) for Nanostructured Materials, on or after 22 August 2018, with an estimated closing date of 10 days after issuance. The CIR for Nanostructured Materials is restricted to Cornerstone consortium members, using a best value evaluation approach. The CIR will solicit enhanced whitepapers for at least one (1) fixed amount OTA with incremental payments made upon completion of specific milestones. Period of performance will be four (4) years. If prototypes are successful, the intent is to award a follow-on production contract. This effort includes developing a prototyping process to: a. Analyze known methods of synthesizing nanoparticles at the lab scale, b. Study those synthesis processes, c. Atomically manipulate the nanoparticle design to meet target application needs, d. Vary process conditions experimentally to ascertain the most economically scalable path for high volume manufacturing, e. Demonstrate successful lab scale manufacturing, and f. Scale a nanoparticulate manufacturing process to a small prototype manufacturing system as a proof of concept to enable future prototyping and fielding to the warfighter. The CIR for Nanostructured Materials will be communicated to the Cornerstone consortium and companies with pending applications via email. Entities are required to have begun the membership process for their proposal to be reviewed. Entities must be members of the Cornerstone consortium, with a signed Cornerstone Consortium Management Agreement (CMA), to be awarded this OTA task. Contractors 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 FBO posting. Please email all questions and responses to the following mailbox: usarmy.ria.rdecom-ecbc.mbx.cornerstone-ota@mail.mil This Special Notice is for planning purposes only and does not constitute a CIR for Nanostructured Materials 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.