ICON Origin Story: Foundries Supporting the American Warfighter
The ICON Origin Story: From a Simple CD to a Revolutionary Platform
What began in 2008 as a CD-ROM titled "How to Do Business with the Government" has evolved into ICON, a comprehensive bid management portal transforming how American manufacturers engage with defense procurement. This nearly two-decade journey has been driven by one mission: help foundries, forges, and machine shops navigate the complex world of government contracting.
Building the Foundation (2008-2016)
The Non-Ferrous Founders' Society recognized a critical gap. Small and medium-sized manufacturers wanted to do business with the Department of Defense but lacked basic knowledge about solicitations, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), and how to obtain a CAGE code. That first CD provided essential primers, but it was just the beginning.
Under a DLA contract, the team created two foundational databases: the Defense Tooling Database and the Supplier Capabilities Database. These tools helped DLA identify which manufacturers had existing tooling for parts and matched material and process capabilities to specific requirements, laying the groundwork for ICON.
By 2012, the first iteration of the ICON platform launched, matching DLA solicitations to qualified foundries. The platform continued evolving through successive versions and technology partnerships.
Responding to National Priorities (2021-Present)
In February 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 14017, "America's Supply Chains," identifying castings and forgings as one of four critical focus areas for defense supply chain resilience. These products remained the DoD's most difficult items to procure. ICON was perfectly positioned to respond.
The platform directly tackles the capability and capacity issues, complex federal contracting processes, technical data requirements, and administrative burdens the Executive Order highlighted. By aggregating opportunities in one centralized location and providing material and specification data upfront, ICON enables manufacturers to quickly assess requirements, reducing search time from hours to minutes.
In 2023, ICON expanded beyond casting to include forging through a partnership with the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) program, leveraging proven success in casting to serve the forging community. Machine shops had already joined, using ICON to find foundries that can produce the castings they need for larger assemblies.
The Next Evolution: ACE
On January 31, 2026, ICON will launch ACE (Automated Contract Evaluation), a breakthrough feature that translates complex government procurement language into terms manufacturers actually understand and use.
ACE uses intelligent automation to match DoD solicitations to exact capabilities, filtering thousands of opportunities to surface only those aligning with a manufacturer's materials, processes, certifications, and capacity. What once took hours of reviewing technical data packages and C-folders now takes minutes, with solicitation data, market research, and NSN information aggregated into a single dashboard for quick feasibility evaluation.
This directly addresses a critical barrier: many capable manufacturers avoid government work because they can't efficiently determine if an opportunity fits. ACE changes that equation, helping companies make faster, data-driven bid/no-bid decisions.
From a simple educational CD to a sophisticated platform serving multiple manufacturing sectors, ICON embodies 80 years of institutional knowledge from the Non-Ferrous Founders' Society, applied directly to solving critical supply chain challenges for American defense manufacturing.
Learn more about ICON at www.iconportal.com