Lockheed Martin Wins UK MoD Electronic Warfare Contract
PORTSMOUTH, ENGLAND, August 18th, 2000 -- Lockheed Martin has been awarded a multi-million pound contract by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) following an extensive competitive source selection process to undertake an Assessment Phase contract for the Soothsayer Electronic Warfare (EW) system for the British Army and Royal Marines. Soothsayer is a next-generation EW system that will provide integrated Electronic Support Measures and electronic countermeasures capability for UK land forces with potential extension to airborne platforms. It will be able to gather and process many types of communication, radar and other electronic data for intelligence purposes. Soothsayer will replace a number of existing nonintegrated EW systems currently in service to greatly increase capabilities in this critical area.
The aim of the 26-month assessment contract, which is competitive, is to reduce all aspects of technical and program risk, so that the MoD can move with confidence to the demonstration and subsequent manufacture phases.
"Team Soothsayer" brings together a strong group of companies with world-class EW and systems integration skills and will leverage its relevant experience on such long-standing successful platform integration programmes as the Royal Navy's Merlin to address the needs of the Soothsayer Assessment Phase. Lockheed Martin's Systems Integration - Owego business segment is leading the team as prime contractor and will oversee the development of the Soothsayer system architecture.
Lockheed Martin UK Integrated Systems in North Harbour, UK is supporting programme management efforts and is also responsible for integrated logistics support. Team-member Smith Group is responsible for operational aspects of the system architecture development, and teammate Logica is supporting system architecture development particularly in the areas of communication interfaces and system modeling.
Lockheed Martin's strong performance on a Pre-Contract Award Evaluation, which was carried out in Owego by staff from the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), Systems and Software Engineering Centre, Malvern, UK was to provide significant input to the award. At the conclusion of the evaluation, DERA cited a significant number of system engineering strengths across Lockheed Martin Systems Integration - Owego, including its proprietary Integrated System Development (ISD) process. The standardised processes and institutionalised practices that are key to systems engineering excellence were successfully demonstrated and validated by this important customer review. This contract award is important marketplace confirmation of the value customers place on systems engineering process maturity and process improvement practices. These proprietary processes save customers substantial amounts of money by significantly reducing the costs and risks associated with major engineering projects such as Soothsayer.
Commenting on the Soothsayer announcement, Lockheed Martin Systems Integration - Owego President Frank C. Meyer, said, "We are delighted that this important customer has recognised the superlative system engineering skills and processes available in Owego and at our North Harbour site to assist customers on complex programmes such as Soothsayer."
Lockheed Martin UK Ltd. combines all its defence, civil and commercial interests in the UK under a single registered company headquartered in London. Lockheed Martin UK Ltd. has annual sales of approximately 600 million pounds and enjoys more than 70 significant business partnerships in the UK. Lockheed Martin UK is a unit of Lockheed Martin Corporation and employs approximately 1,000 employees at over 20 facilities including London, Portsmouth, Havant, Southampton, Yeovil, Swindon, Hertford, Bristol and Cornwall.
UK Contact: Christopher Trippick
Lockheed Martin, North Harbour, +44 2392 443535
E-mail: chris.trippick@lmco.com
US Contacts:
Kippen Stalma,(607) 751-2598, e-mail: kippen.stalma@lmco.com
Mike Drake, (607) 751-2598, e-mail: mike.drake@lmco.com
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