'Team CW' Welcomes Minister's Statement On Complex Weapons.
* UK Minister for Defence Procurement, Lord Drayson, announces Complex Weapons package
* MBDA, QinetiQ, Roxel and Thales UK announce formation of Team CW
* Strategic Partnering Agreement to be created between UK MoD and ‘Team CW’
London, 19 July 2006
Leading members of the UK’s Complex Weapons (CW) industry welcomed the announcement today by Lord Drayson, UK Minister for Defence Procurement, of a package of measures aimed at securing sovereign capability in the sector for the UK’s Armed Forces. The package, which includes a number of key enabling contracts, is expected to lead in the longer term to full-scale development and manufacturing contracts. The most significant item within this package is the announcement to change to a sole source procurement policy for the Loitering Munition Development & Manufacture Programme to the MBDA-led Team CW.
MBDA, QinetiQ, Roxel and Thales UK’s air defence and missile electronics businesses, heralded the package of measures as a significant step forward. The companies have joined forces to form ‘Team CW’, under the leadership of MBDA UK, committed to jointly delivering ‘Value For Money’ solutions to meet the MoD’s short, medium and long-term weapons requirements. Team CW will also involve other key members of the Complex Weapons supply chain to ensure innovation, technology pull-through and sustainment of critical UK sovereign capabilities as required.
The commitments outlined today by Lord Drayson will help to provide the members of Team CW with the procurement and business planning assumptions necessary to ensure a sustainable future and will form the bedrock of a Strategic Partnering Agreement (SPA) between Team CW and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) that will be co-signed by the year-end.
The SPA will provide the partnership environment to ensure the enabling contracts for the CW sector and future programmes will be proactively managed to deliver mutual benefit. It will also create the appropriate mechanism to jointly change both MoD and industry cultures to support the new acquisition processes, value measures and initiatives recommended by the McKane report (“Enabling Acquisition Change”). This will allow the necessary transformation steps to be undertaken to re-shape the sector in line with this vision.
Longer term, the SPA will support the development of joint MoD/Team CW capability route maps to ensure technology insertion, which will deliver the strategic coherence of research pull-through from the supply chain. Underpinning this objective is the development of an embedded through-life capability management culture.
Team CW acknowledged the announcement by Lord Drayson as a significant shift in the UK Government’s defence procurement strategy and as evidence of the Minister’s Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) in action. The DIS White Paper, published by the MoD at the end of 2005, identified significant challenges the Complex Weapons sector needed to address including the reduction in major equipment procurement and associated funding streams. The change in the UK CW market environment required a new direction and vision to be developed. Team CW formed to provide a coherent response to these new market conditions.
Steve Wadey, Team CW Chairman and Managing Director of MBDA UK, said: “In the last six months, industry and MoD have taken decisive action within this sector. This has necessitated commitment, robust decision-making and strong leadership from both industry and MoD. The contribution made by all parties during this time has been considerable. We are confident, as Team CW, that this drive and determination will be maintained during 2006 and beyond, and we are committed to ensuring the successful implementation of the Strategic Partnering Agreement and delivery of world class complex weapons for the UK’s Armed Forces”.
Notes to Editors
MBDA
With an annual turnover exceeding £2.5 billion (€ 3.5 billion), a forward order book of over €14 billion and over 70 customers worldwide, MBDA is a world-leading, global missile systems company. With 45 missile system and countermeasure programmes in operational service, MBDA designs, develops and produces the most advanced guided weapon systems for armies, navies and air forces around the world. MBDA is the UK MoD’s lead missile systems supplier and is prime contractor for a number of the UK Armed Forces’ complex weapons including the Storm Shadow conventionally armed stand-off precision strike missile, the high-speed Asraam air-to-air missile and Brimstone air-launched precision ground attack weapon, the Rapier air defence system and new PAAMS state-of-the-art naval area defence system which will equip the RN’s new destroyers. MBDA UK employs 3,000 at its high-tech engineering facilities in Bristol, Stevenage and Lostock. MBDA is jointly owned by BAE SYSTEMS (37.5%), EADS (37.5%) and FINMECCANICA (25%).
QinetiQ
QinetiQ (pronounced ki net ik as in 'kinetic energy') is a leading international defence and security technology company that was formed in July 2001 from the UK Government's Defence Evaluation & Research Agency (DERA). QinetiQ has over 11,400 employees, who deliver technology-based services and exploit QinetiQ's strengths in technology research by selling systems solutions, products, managed services and licences to government and commercial customers in a spectrum of defence, security and other commercial markets, and by creating technology based ventures. In February 2006, QinetiQ Group plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange (main market) and joined the FTSE250 in June 2006. In the year to 31 March 2006, QinetiQ delivered a 37.6 per cent rise in underlying operating profit to £90.7m on turnover which rose by 22.9 per cent to £1,051.7m.
Roxel
With a turnover of approximately €150 million, Roxel is Europe's leading propulsion company. Formed in 2003, Roxel is a joint venture company equally owned by MBDA and SNPE. Employing over 700 people, it has manufacturing sites in both the UK and France. Roxel has a world lead in the provision of insensitive munition propulsion systems able to deliver the high performance required by modern missiles. As a major supplier through missile primes to the UK MoD, Roxel provides the propulsion system for most of the current UK armed forces complex / guided weapons including ASRAAM, Rapier, Starstreak and Seawolf.
Thales UK
Thales UK is a major electronics and systems group serving defence, aerospace, security and services markets. Thales UK employs 9,000 staff and in 2005 revenues were over £1bn.
Thales UK’s missile-related businesses comprise Thales Air Defence Ltd and Thales Missile Electronics Ltd.
Thales Air Defence Ltd, based in Belfast and employing around 500 people, is the centre of excellence for missile systems design, development and manufacture within the Thales Group, and also has a core capability in complete weapons system integration. Thales Missile Electronics is a world leading provider of electronic sub-systems for complex weapons, including proximity fuzes, safety and arming units and seekers. It is based in Basingstoke, employing around 250 people.
Carol Reed www.mbda.net
mailto: carol.reed@mbda.co.uk
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