RFP: Skills Gap Analysis for a Localized Talent Supply Chain

Purpose

This Request for Proposal (RFP) seeks a qualified contractor to complete a Skills Gap Analysis for a localized Talent Supply Chain. The work will continue support for the specific skills needs of the Organic Industrial Base (OIB) and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) by building a repeatable approach for each instance that yields actionable recommendations for:

  • Employee decisions
  • Employer decisions
  • Training alternatives
  • Policy options

The analysis must inform labor-aware technology deployment, job design, and modernization planning at designated facilities which include depots and sustainment centers.

Background and Need

Modernization of OIB/DIB facilities depends as much on people and skills as on technology. Production volume and rate targets create new labor demand in core occupations.

Facilities need a defensible, localized picture of:

  • Which occupations are critical to the site and to the technologies under consideration
  • How regional supply compares to that demand
  • Which adjacent occupations can feed the pipeline
  • What wages, skills gaps, training, and geographic hiring strategies will close the gap

This effort must produce both site-specific recommendations and repeatable, scalable tooling so facilities can self-serve on skills analysis over time.

Scope of Work

ARM Institute Education and Workforce Development Team will serve as the project manager for this effort. The ARM Institute will conduct the external regional labor-market and talent-supply analysis. The Proposer shall complete the internal skills-gap analysis for each designated facility (or facilities), associated modernization technologies, and agreed geographic labor shed.

Internal analysis includes shop-floor validation of work design, site-specific occupational demand, facility workforce and job-design implications, and recommendations that inform employee decisions, employer decisions, training alternatives, and policy at the site.

The Proposer shall work under the ARM Institute’s project management, follow ARM Institute direction on schedule, data definitions, and site access, and integrate internal findings with the ARM Institute’s external analysis so the sites receive one picture of supply, demand, and levers.

The Proposer shall assess internal labor and skill demand for the work to be performed; validate that demand with facility and technical experts so it reflects actual shop-floor work design; assess internal labor and skill supply, including candidate occupations that could meet target requirements from the incumbent and on-site workforce; and identify practical levers—such as wages, skill gaps, training, retention, and internal pipelines—that the Government can use to close shortfalls. Findings shall be structured so they can be combined with ARM’s external labor-shed analysis and scaled to the labor-shed strategy.

All workforce assessments (internal and external) will align with automation assessment being managed with the ARM Technology Team.

Deliverables

Deliverables shall be suitable for use by facility leadership and OIB/DIB workforce planners. Underlying methods and tooling should be documented so analyses can be repeated and scaled to additional sites.

Anticipated Outcomes and Improvements

Successful performance of this work is expected to yield:

  • Deeper insight into regional labor and skill supply for occupations critical to the designated facilities and associated modernization technologies.
  • Repeatable, scalable tooling that enables facilities to self-serve subsequent skills analyses.
  • Collection and analysis of talent supply-chain data at depots and sustainment centers to inform OIB requirements and decisions.
  • Actionable strategy insights on retention, training, and labor planning for the site and production line when adopting recommended technology solutions.

Requirements

Contractor shall demonstrate the ability to:

  1. Map production volume/rate to occupational and skill demand for OIB/DIB work in depot and sustainment contexts.
  2. Identify core occupations at industry and site level, including custom occupations with skill profiles when standard taxonomies are insufficient.
  3. Benchmark demand against regional firms using national industrial databases.
  4. Conduct shop-floor validation with facility SMEs
  5. Assess occupational adjacency / transferability across occupations and estimate regional supply, demographics, wages, and occupational mobility.
  6. Quantify levers: wage competitiveness, missing skills, pipeline size, and labor-shed (commute vs. relocate) sensitivity.
  7. Translate findings into recommendations for employees, employers, training alternatives, and policy.
  8. Support labor-informed technology choice and job design.
  9. Deliver methods and tools that facilities can reuse (self-serve skills analysis).

Proposal Instructions

The proposal shall not exceed two pages and shall include only the following sections:

  1. Technical Approach. Describe how the work in Task 1 will be performed, including data sources, occupational taxonomies, shop-floor engagement, labor-shed definition, and treatment of custom occupations.
  2. Relevant Experience. Summarize prior work on industrial workforce analysis, OIB/DIB, manufacturing or analogous production-rate labor modeling, occupational transition analysis, and facility-level modernization.
  3. Team and Qualifications. Identify key personnel, the facility/Tech Team engagement model, and analytical/tooling capability.
  4. Work Plan and Schedule. Outline phasing for demand assessment, shop-floor validation, supply assessment, levers analysis, reporting, and consultation.
  5. Budget. Provide a high-level budget for the proposed work. $4 million over two years is a hard ceiling. Total proposed cost, including all options, shall not exceed $4 million for the two-year period of performance. Proposals that exceed $4 million will not be considered.

Period of Performance and Place of Performance

  • Place of Performance. Work shall be performed through a combination of on-site and virtual engagement at multiple pre-selected OIB facilities. On-site/shop-floor engagement is required as needed to validate work design; remaining coordination may be virtual.
  • Period of Performance. The period of performance begins from contracting through September 30, 2028. September 30, 2028 is a hard deadline. All work, including final deliverables, shall be completed by that date. No period of performance extension is anticipated.

Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on a Best Value determination using the following criteria:

  • Technical Approach: Soundness methodology and data sources.
  • Execution Capability: Ability to produce labor-informed job-design recommendations.
  • Quality of Deliverables: Usability, clarity, and depth of proposed deliverables
  • Price: Cost realism, reasonableness, and value.

Submission Information & Point of Contact

Please submit all proposals electronically to [email protected] by no later than Monday, November 16th @ 5:00 p.m. EST.  

ABOUT THE ARM INSTITUTE

The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of War under Agreement Number W911NF-17-3-0004 and is part of the Manufacturing USA® network. The ARM Institute leverages a world class consortium of 500+ member organizations and partners across industry, academia, and government to assert the US as the leading nation in manufacturing output through the adoption of robotics and AI. Based in Pittsburgh, PA since 2017, the ARM Institute has a dual focus on catalyzing innovative yet practical robotics and physical AI solutions while growing and preparing the US workforce for advanced manufacturing careers.

For more information, visit www.arminstitute.org and follow the ARM Institute on LinkedIn

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