MoD Minister announces missile support contract to Thales in Belfast
23 January 2009
The Minister of State for Defence Equipment & Support (Min DE&S), Quentin Davies MP, has today announced that Thales UK has been awarded a contract worth more than £200m from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to deliver the Air Defence Availability Project (ADAPT) in support of the Starstreak high velocity missile (HVM) system. He made the announcement during a visit to the company's Belfast facility, where Starstreak is manufactured and assembled.
Under the terms of the contract, which will sustain up to 100 jobs for the Belfast site in Castleraegh, Thales UK will ensure that a specified level of availability of the Starstreak HVM system is provided to the UK Armed Forces. It also covers the support of all HVM equipment until the scheduled out-of-service date at the end of 2020.
Accompanied by Alex Dorrian, CEO Thales UK, and Steve Hill, Vice President and Managing Director of Thales UK's Air Systems business, the Minister was given a tour of the site and given a briefing on the various products being developed there for the UK Armed Forces and for export.
The Minister was accompanied on the tour by Peter Robinson, local site MP, Assembly Member and First Minister for Northern Ireland; and Arlene Foster, Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Northern Ireland Assembly. Min DE&S also met Trade Union representatives and a range of Thales employees, including apprentices, recent graduates, and staff who have been with the company for over 40 years.
Steve Hill, Vice President and Managing Director of Thales UK's Air Systems business, and head of the Belfast site, says: "The ADAPT contract is key to sustaining our current levels of employment and will protect up to 100 highly skilled, technical engineering jobs throughout the life of the project."
The Minister for Defence Equipment & Support, comments: "This is an important contract with Thales UK as it ensures the availability of the high velocity missile, a crucial weapon system for the UK Armed Forces. Through this £200m contract we are sustaining technologies within the UK industrial base that are important for our future defence needs, and sustaining up to 100 vital jobs over the next decade. I am committed to providing our Armed Forces with the best possible equipment to deal with a wide range of potential operations."
Alex Dorrian, CEO Thales UK, says: "It is important to Thales that Quentin Davies MP has been able to visit us in Belfast, a centre of excellence within the global Thales Group. Belfast has supported the MoD for more than 50 years and the MoD is still the main customer for what we do here. We were pleased to be able to show him the type of technology undertaken here in Belfast."
Some 530 of Thales UK's 9,000 workforce are based at the Belfast site. The company is an important source of high-tech, high-skill employment in the region and in the last year has recruited around 30 people, including a high number of engineers. The site is planning to recruit around another 40 in 2009.
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Notes to trade & technical editors
The ADAPT contract will ensure the delivery of a guaranteed level of Starstreak HVM system availability and support of all HVM equipment until 31 December 2020. It also provides a mechanism to bring into service a new fire control system for the self-propelled Starstreak HVM, together with automatic target tracking, a new standard of Starstreak HVM dart, and will allow for the introduction of the complementary new Lightweight Multi-role Missile (LMM) that was officially launched by Thales UK at last year's Farnborough Air Show.
The ADAPT Invitation to Tender (ITT) was issued by the MoD in December 2006 to evaluate the best value-for-money option to provide support to Starstreak HVM on an availability basis until its scheduled out of service date in late 2020. Thales UK's Belfast-based business was down-selected as the preferred bidder in August 2007, having demonstrated that they could provide the best value for money at the required readiness and availability levels against demanding service criteria.
Rear Admiral Amjad Hussain, Director General Weapons, DE&S says: "This support arrangement will reduce the cost of ownership of Starstreak (HVM) while also providing the ability to transition from peacetime to planned or unplanned operations. ADAPT is fully consistent with the wider MoD initiative for the Complex Weapons (CW) sector and we are pleased to be entering into a long-term arrangement with one of our Team CW partners."
The ADAPT contract is strategically very important to Thales UK, providing the company with a strong baseline from which to further grow the support business with MoD and its overseas customers.
Steve Hill, Vice President and Managing Director of Thales UK's Air Systems business, and head of the Belfast site, says: "The ADAPT contract will provide us with an opportunity to move into the area of through-life capability management, an area which is becoming increasingly important for defence contracting. This also is a great endorsement of the UK Defence Industrial Strategy, which facilitates longer-term relationships between key suppliers and the MoD."
About Thales and Thales UK
Thales is a leading international electronics and systems group, addressing defence, aerospace and security markets worldwide. Thales' leading-edge technology is supported by 22,000 R&D engineers who offer a capability unmatched in Europe to develop and deploy field-proven mission-critical information systems. To this end, the group's civil and military businesses develop in parallel and share a common base of technologies to serve a single objective: the security of people, property and nations. The group builds its growth on its unique multi-domestic strategy based on trusted partnerships with national customers and market players, while leveraging its global expertise to support local technology and industrial development. Thales employs 68,000 people in 50 countries with 2007 revenues in excess of £8.3 bn.
Thales UK employs 9,000 staff based at more than 50 locations. In 2007 Thales UK's revenues were over £1.2 bn.
Press contact:
Thales UK
Tim Orr
Mob. +44 (0)7977 241563
Email: tim.orr@thalesgroup.com
Thales UK
Kathryn Bell
Mob: +44 7813 903274
Email: kathryn.bell@thalesgroup.com
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