Submissions are closed as of January 22, 2023

CESMII Roadmap Projects Request for Proposals (RFP4)

About CESMII
The Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (“Institute” or “CESMII”) is one of 17 Manufacturing USA Innovation Institutes designed to revitalize American manufacturing and support domestic manufacturing competitiveness.

The Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII) was awarded to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Cooperative Agreement DE-EE0007613. CESMII is a national network that brings together over $140 million in public-private investment and more than 150 partners from leading manufacturers and universities across the US. The Institute will accelerate Smart Manufacturing (SM) adoption through the integration of advanced sensors, control, platforms and modeling to radically improve productivity, precision, performance and energy productivity.

About this RFP

CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute™ is driving efficiency and innovation for U.S. manufacturers, through the funding of Smart Manufacturing (SM) technology, research and education.  We do this through Request for Proposals (RFPs), focusing on priorities defined by our mission, strategy and the institute roadmap.  This RFP allocates up to $2.0M ($1M in Federal funding matched by $1M in cost share) for Extended Impact and Industry Projects.

  • Extended Impact Projects will showcase energy productivity and/or operational efficiencies in exemplar industry use cases from energy intensive industries (such as steel, cement, food, chemicals) including the manufacturing supply chains, that could employ, augment, or extend existing SM building block technologies (sensing, control, analytics and predictive modeling) and educational content created from CESMII projects from previous funding cycles. These projects, based on the success story from the previous funding, will focus on additional ideas to showcase the extended impacts.
  • Industry Demonstration Projects will showcase energy productivity and/or operational efficiencies in exemplar industry use cases from energy intensive industries and/or manufacturing supply chains, that could employ and/or contribute to existing CESMII SM technologies (SM Innovation Platform (SMIP), SM Profiles, and the SM Marketplace). These projects will be led by a large or medium manufacturer, along with several small and medium manufacturers in their supply chain

Focus Areas 

CESMII is inviting proposals on projects that will demonstrate the application of integrated SM technologies to improve energy productivity and operational efficiencies in the exemplar, end-to-end manufacturing supply chains that include several contributing SMMs.  The supply chains may cover energy-intensive industries and/or industry verticals with a broad reach across the US.  A few guidelines are provided below: 

  • Projects may use, augment or extend existing SM building block technologies created from past CESMII projects in energy-intensive industries such as steel, cement, food, chemical, etc. and extend their application to additional participants in the same industry.
  • Projects may use and/or contribute to existing CESMII technologies including SM Innovation Platform (SMIP), SM Profiles (information models) and the SM Marketplace and apply them to an industry supply chain that includes several contributing SMMs.  Commercially available hardware or software may be used in conjunction with the CESMII tools.
  • Projects must establish a baseline before implementation and demonstrate the impact after implementation of the SM solution on energy efficiency, productivity, waste reduction, quality improvement etc. for the manufacturer during the course of the project.
  • Projects must support the development of a CESMII SM Playbook for manufacturers.  The playbook is intended to turn project outcomes into broadly-applicable guidelines for small and mid-sized manufacturers (SMMs) in identifying opportunities to leverage SM technology towards achieving higher levels of productivity and capacity, implementing those solutions, and training their workforce to leverage the solutions in their manufacturing jobs.

CESMII Project Library

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