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RFI for Commercial Operating Models for GOCO Army Ammunition Plants

This notice from the Army Contracting Command – Rock Island (ACC-RI) seeks industry input on future operating models for Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated (GOCO) Army ammunition plants. - Purpose: Request for Information (RFI) to inform future contract structures and competitions for GOCO facilities - Scope: Seeks recommendations and practical examples for a commercially disciplined operating model - Contractor responsibilities: sustain, modernize, maintain, and improve facility operations - Efficient operations, productive utilization, pursuit of approved workload, and sound business practices - Key topics for feedback: - Operator responsibilities and risk allocation - Modernization mechanisms and demand/workload management - Flexible and resilient production, commercial workload, and market access - Contract structure, oversight, and technical data/intellectual property - No specific OEMs, vendors, products, or part numbers are named - Intended to improve responsiveness, capacity, and competitiveness of Army ammunition plants - Respondents should provide practical recommendations and lessons learned from relevant manufacturing environments

Description

Executive Summary The current operating strategy for Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated (GOCO) Army ammunition plants requires reassessment to ensure the Organic Industrial Base can meet future requirements for safety, responsiveness, capacity, modernization, supply-chain resilience, and affordable lifecycle performance. Traditional GOCO competition and contract approaches may not consistently create the incentives, flexibility, or accountability necessary to operate Government-owned facilities as modern and competitive manufacturing enterprises. In particular, existing approaches may overemphasize Government-directed workload and reimbursed facility operations rather than operator responsibility for productive utilization, maintenance, modernization, workforce development, workload capture, and operational performance. The Government is seeking industry input on a commercially disciplined GOCO operating model that preserves Government mission priorities while providing the operating contractor meaningful responsibility and flexibility to manage the facility as a competitive manufacturing enterprise. Under such a model, the contractor would be expected to sustain, modernize, maintain, and improve the facility through efficient operations, productive utilization, pursuit of approved workload, and sound business practices. The Government seeks to identify contracting, workload, risk-allocation, facility-use, oversight, intellectual-property, and performance-management constructs that will enable this model while preserving appropriate Government accountability, safety, security, and access to required production capacity. Portfolio Acquisition Executive Agile Sustainment & Ammunition (PAE AS&A) is assessing the future GOCO operating strategy before proceeding with future GOCO competitions. Purpose Army Contracting Command – Rock Island, on behalf of PAE AS&A, intends to host an Industry Day in November 2026 focused on transforming the operating strategy for GOCO Army ammunition plants. Specific Industry Day details will be provided separately; registration is not currently required. This Request for Information (RFI), together with the subsequent Industry Day, will help the Government understand feasible business and operating models for future GOCO facilities. The Government will use industry feedback to inform discussion of alternative approaches to facility operations, modernization, workload management, contract structure, and oversight. Objective The Government’s objective is to establish a commercially disciplined operating model for GOCO Army ammunition plants that improves responsiveness to Warfighter requirements while sustaining long-term plant viability, modernization, competitiveness, and accountability. The desired model would provide the operating contractor with appropriate flexibility and meaningful responsibility to manage facility utilization, maintenance, modernization, workforce, supply chain, and approved workload. The Government seeks input on the risk-allocation mechanisms, workload authorities, facility-use structures, performance measures, and oversight approaches necessary to support this model while preserving Government mission priorities. The desired end state is a modern, flexible production enterprise capable of efficiently increasing, reducing, pausing, restarting, changing over, and surging production in response to Warfighter need without disproportionate impacts to cost, schedule, quality, workforce readiness, safety, or production capability. The Government is particularly interested in performance measures that demonstrate: Safe and reliable operations; Schedule reliability and order-to-delivery responsiveness; Plant availability and production throughput; Rapid changeover, shutdown, restart, and surge capability; Flexible, modular, dual-use, and/or automated manufacturing capacity; Effective maintenance, workforce, and supply-chain management; Competitive lifecycle cost and productive utilization; Modernization outcomes that improve operating performance; and Appropriate transparency and accountability without unnecessary Government direction of day-to-day operations. Areas of Consideration The Government developed the attached questionnaire based on the following interconnected areas of consideration. Respondents are requested to complete the associated questionnaire and provide practical recommendations, examples, and lessons learned from relevant commercial, defense-industrial, or other manufacturing environments. The Government is particularly interested in responses that: Describe a complete and coherent commercial operating model rather than isolated contractual changes; Identify recommended Government and contractor responsibilities; Explain the proposed allocation of risk and opportunity; Identify measurable outcomes and recommended key performance indicators; Describe the conditions necessary to modernize facilities and maintain flexible production capacity; Address how the model would operate during high-demand, low-demand, shutdown, restart, and surge conditions; Identify legal, regulatory, technical, security, safety, qualification, or business constraints requiring further Government consideration; and Contain data that supports its recommended solutions. 1. Commercial Operating Model and Risk Allocation The Government seeks input on operating models in which the contractor manages a Government-owned facility with commercial discipline while meeting Government mission priorities. Topics may include: Operator responsibilities, decision rights, and accountability; Allocation of demand, utilization, revenue, operating-cost, maintenance, modernization, obsolescence, and performance risk; Contractor responsibility for productive utilization and continuous improvement; Mechanisms that encourage modernization as an operating outcome rather than a discrete facility-improvement project; Gain-sharing, profit-sharing, retained earnings, or reinvestment approaches; Treatment of contractor-funded improvements at contract transition; and Protection of Government interests while maintaining meaningful contractor performance and market risk. 2. Demand, Capacity, and Workload Management The Government seeks input on how Government requirements and approved non-Government workload can be integrated to improve plant utilization, responsiveness, and long-term viability. Topics may include: Government demand forecasting and demand-signal quality; Government mission-priority requirements; Capacity reservation, surge, turn-down, shutdown, restart, and reconstitution; Minimum Government commitments, if necessary, and the appropriate purpose and scope of such commitments; Integration of Government, commercial, Foreign Military Sales, and other approved workload; Multi-year procurement and workload-planning approaches; Workforce retention and readiness during periods of variable demand; and Mechanisms for balancing Government access to capacity with contractor responsibility for utilization. 3. Modern, Flexible, and Resilient Production The Government seeks concepts for modernizing GOCO production capability to improve agility, resilience, and efficient response to changing demand. Topics may include: Flexible, modular, dual-use, and automated production lines; Rapid product changeover and qualification; Planned shutdown, restart, and surge capability; Automation, robotics, digital manufacturing, digital twins, and predictive maintenance; Equipment replacement, facility renewal, and obsolescence management; Workforce cross-training and critical-skill retention; Supply-chain resilience and access to existing U.S. industrial capacity; and Technical, regulatory, contractual, qualification, or facility barriers that limit modernization and flexibility. 4. Commercial Workload and Market Access The Government seeks feedback on conditions that would enable the operating contractor to pursue and execute eligible non-Government workload while protecting Government mission requirements. Topics may include: Commercial sales and commercial demand signals; Foreign Military Sales and other approved non-Government work; Commercial use approvals, offtake agreements, leases, industrial-park models, campus models, or other facility-use structures; Constraints on commercial utilization of Government-owned facilities; Treatment of revenue, costs, capacity, and Government-furnished assets associated with non-Government work; Effects of shared volume on unit cost, utilization, workforce stability, and modernization; and Processes for resolving competition between Government mission requirements and approved non-Government workload. 5. Contract Structure, Oversight, and Accountability The Government seeks feedback on contract and oversight structures that establish clear accountability for outcomes while providing appropriate operating flexibility. Topics may include: Contract type and term; Base award terms, options, renewals, and performance-based continuation decisions; Leases, industrial-park models, campus models, or other alternative business structures; Direct and indirect funding approaches; Product pricing, capacity payments, and commercial revenue treatment; Transition from prescriptive performance work statements to Statements of Objectives or contractor-proposed approaches; Commercial-style maintenance and asset-management practices; Removal or simplification of low-value reporting, approvals, and administrative requirements; Key performance indicators, digital dashboards, digital twins, and operational and financial data transparency; and Government insight mechanisms that do not require day-to-day operational direction. 6. Technical Data, Intellectual Property, and Competition The Government seeks input on technical-data and intellectual-property structures that enable modernization, sustainment, resiliency, and future competition. Topics may include: Data rights necessary to support Government oversight, sustainment, and future competition; Protection of contractor commercial intellectual property and proprietary processes; Engineering-change and approval processes associated with modernization; Technical-data-package revisions; Qualification and production-continuity considerations; Reducing single-source risk; and Improving industrial-base resiliency through updated technical data and manufacturing approaches. Response Instructions Industry is requested to complete the linked questionnaire no later than COB 16 October 2026.  Questions regarding this RFI may be submitted to: usarmy.ria.acc.mbx.s3coe-events@army.mil Additional Links:PAE AS&A GOCO Strategy RFI

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