8 Mar 02. Following our story last week (BATTLESPACE UPDATE Vol. 8, ‘UK REQUESTS BID FOR DIGITIZATION STAGE 2’). BATTLESPACE interviewed Mike Turley, VP Business Development of General Dynamics (UK) Ltd.
Turley told BATTLESPACE that BOWMAN was on schedule and meeting all the milestones. General Dynamics has established a vehicle integration facility at MoD Ashchurch, where it has established vehicle design and integration capabilities for BOWMAN. In addition the establishment of the Company’s Welsh facility is on track with140 employees in place with recruitment continuing. As reported, General Dynamics is undertaking a funded study on behalf of the MoD to assess software requirements needed to integrate the next stage of BOWMAN and the 17 BISAs. The company has, in association with the DPA, issued a Request For Particulars (RFP) to a number of companies which include TRW, Thales, Lockheed Martin and BAE SYSTEMS for a short response time by the end of March. In addition GD is examining whether BATTLEWEB now called BSAM in the UK could be upgraded to meet this requirement. The RFP will request details of possible software solutions for the Main Assessment Phase for BOWMAN DS2. General Dynamics will undertake the task as Prime Systems Integrator should they be satisfied that the solution chosen by the joint GD/MoD assessment will be able to meet the requirements under DS2. The bid will go for Main Gate Approval later this year.
To meet the growing requirements of the next stage of BOWMAN, including meeting the needs of export customers, GD has established a Battlespace Systems Division at its Welsh facility headed by Stu Teterenko.
In addition to DS2, a number of announcements regarding the 17 other BISA’s notably the Fire Control requirement being bid by Raytheon and Logica which will be announced in the next 6-8 months.
BATTLESPACE TECHNNOLOGIES will be running a major update on BOWMAN following an interview with Larry Johnson, Managing Director of General Dynamics (UK) Ltd., in its June Digitization Update issue.