Sponsored by Oshkosh
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10 Oct 19. Jankel Tactical Systems is awarded a substantial LMS contract by US DOD. World-class specialists in the design and production of high-specification armored vehicles, US-based Jankel Tactical Systems (part of the global Jankel group of companies), has been awarded a Lifecycle Management Services (LMS) contract by the US DOD. This announcement coincides with the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) exhibition, the largest Land Warfare tradeshow in North America, taking place in Washington DC, 14-16 October 2019.
Jankel Tactical Systems is already well-established in North America. This latest contract, initially of a 12-month duration, will see Jankel delivering a service provision package in support of a wide range of non-standard tactical and armored military and civilian vehicles. Within the range of supported platforms will be Jankel’s own civilian armored vehicles (CAVs) and multiple other tactical wheeled vehicles and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), operated by US DOD. The services delivered under this contract include development operator and maintainer training courses, maintenance management, repair services, spare parts, and a wide range of other assistance, supporting fleets from delivery through to disposal in remote and limited resource locations, worldwide.
Enjoying a period of significant growth, Jankel’s core clients include the US Department of Defense; US Department of State; the Canadian Department of National Defense; and Global Affairs Canada. In addition, Jankel has secured new customer opportunities with the US Customs and Border Patrol, US Marshalls, and the US Drug Enforcement Agency. This new LMS contract sees Jankel expand their existing LMS capability into a wider, more extensive vehicle service provision arena.
Previously, Jankel’s focus in North America has been on ‘Hot Formed Armored’ discreet platforms and the delivery of niche armor requirements for platforms indigenous to the country within which they operate; including the Chevrolet 3500 HD Suburban, Toyota Land Cruiser 79 Series Double Cab (4×4 and 6×6) and Mercedes Sprinter 3500 XD. In addition to their wide range of vehicle protection capabilities, Jankel is targeting the provision of specialist seating and survivability systems. Jankel sales programs increased significantly in 2018/19 with the provision of BLASTech Seating solutions for Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) and new production vehicles for the US and allied nations.
Cody Baker, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Jankel Tactical Systems said: “winning this US DOD LMS contract is a key milestone for us, underlining our capability as a whole-vehicle, through-life engineering business, capable of designing, building and supporting defense and security platforms, worldwide”. He added: “what’s of particular note here is that in addition to supporting our own in-service vehicles, we’ll be supporting a wider range of other vehicles in a variety of locations; that’s a big step forward for us”.
09 Oct 19. IFS, the global enterprise applications company, today announces the availability of major application innovations that redefine the meaning of ‘open’ in service management, enterprise resource management (ERP), and enterprise asset management (EAM). To strengthen its approach, IFS has evolved its technology foundation with 15,000+ native APIs to open new paths to extensibility, integration, and flexibility. As a new member of the OpenAPI Initiative (OAI), IFS is helping shape the industry by promoting open applications that guarantee customers and partners total freedom to develop and connect data sources to drive value in a way that is meaningful to them. By prioritising open applications, IFS is upping the ante in terms of innovation and customer centricity while decisively turning away from platform coercion and lock-in.
IFS offers native OData-based RESTful APIs across its entire suite of ERP, EAM and service management products, which means connecting, extending or integrating into the IFS core is quick and easy. The APIs have been engineered in tandem with IFS’s new state-of-the-art IFS Aurena user experience, which is now available across the full breadth of IFS Applications, for all customers.
“With this approach, IFS is giving its customers 15,000 new ways to flex,” IFS CEO Darren Roos said. “It goes without saying that, as excited as we are about reaching this milestone, the driving force behind our deliveries is our unwavering commitment to offer choice and value to our customers. Providing ‘open’ solutions is a critical factor in making good on this promise. The quality, pace, and focus of our product development speaks to a business that is outperforming the legacy vendors in the enterprise software space.”
IFS Chief Product Officer Christian Pedersen said, “What sets us apart from the competition is the fact that what we are announcing today, we can deliver today. While the approach and technologies are ‘next-gen’, the solutions are not—they’re ‘now-gen’ to IFS. By delivering and using a core consisting of thousands of APIs ourselves, we ensure that the APIs will also provide value to our customers and partners. We give them the freedom and the power to shape and extend their own experiences with IFS solutions, and we’ll work side by side with them using the same set of APIs.”
The IFS Aurena user experience received a positive reception when initially launched. It has now been successfully extended across the entire IFS Applications suite for Service Management, ERP, and EAM. IFS Aurena uses the same set of APIs which are now generally available and provides a state-of-the-art browser-based user experience optimised for each role and user type, with a focus on employee engagement and productivity.
IFS Aurena provides customers with a truly responsive design, allowing the entire suite to automatically adapt to different form factors as well as capabilities to design and build truly native applications targeted across iOS, Android, and Windows, with support for offline scenarios and device-specific capabilities such as GPS and camera.
Among the most significant industry updates is support for International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) compliance initiatives in the cloud. Customers who have ITAR obligations, such as those operating in or trading with the US aerospace, defence or government sectors, can confidently deploy and use IFS software to support their ITAR compliant business needs, in an independently validated environment hosted in the Microsoft Azure Government Cloud, fully managed by IFS.
08 Oct 19. Exostar and Fujitsu Partner to Advance Global Supply Chain Cybersecurity. Fujitsu’s Fort# Forum Leverages Proven Exostar Solutions to Help Japanese Companies Comply with Current and Emerging U.S. Department of Defense Information Security Requirements.
Exostar, the leader in trusted, secure business collaboration in highly-regulated industries including aerospace and defense, life sciences, and healthcare, today announced an agreement with Fujitsu Limited to better protect the controlled unclassified information (CUI) exchanged by companies throughout the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) global, multi-tiered supply chain. The agreement brings solutions to the Japanese market that allow Japanese companies that participate in the DoD supply chain to meet the security requirements for accessing and handling CUI found in National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-171.
“Our relationship with Fujitsu is important to Exostar, our customers, and our partners across aerospace and defense,” said Stuart Itkin, Exostar’s Vice President of Marketing and Product Management. “It encapsulates our commitment to continually expand and add value to our trusted community of nearly 150,000 A&D organizations worldwide, enabling them to make better, more timely decisions, to mitigate risk, and to operate more efficiently.”
Last month, Fujitsu launched Fort# Forum, a Japanese language defense and national security solution that incorporates Exostar’s Managed Access Gateway (MAG) identity management platform and ForumPass Defense (FPD) multi-enterprise information sharing platform, which together enable organizations to comply with key controls under NIST SP 800-171. As the A&D industry continues to address security challenges on a global basis, Fort# Forum builds the foundation for common practices by providing the means for Japanese companies that are important members of the DoD supply chain to align with U.S. cybersecurity standards.
According to Fujitsu, “Japanese defense-related companies increasingly are demanding the provision of information systems that can comply with these new security requirements. Fort# Forum eases the substantial time, cost, and resource burden Japanese organizations face to implement CUI protection that meets NIST SP 800-171 standards – helping to ensure these organizations can continue to participate on US DoD contracts, mitigating risk, and strengthening security.”
The Exostar/Fujitsu relationship takes on added significance with the forthcoming Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification under development by the DoD. CMMC will create a unified cybersecurity standard to be consistently applied to all organizations across the Defense Industrial Base globally. Under CMMC, all 300,000+ companies globally doing business with the DoD must have their cybersecurity practices and processes audited and certified by an accredited third-party assessor. Suppliers in Japan and elsewhere that access and handle CUI will need to comply not only with NIST SP 800-171, but also with other information security requirements included in the CMMC standard. Powered by Exostar’s MAG and FPD, Fujitsu’s Fort# Forum gives Japanese organizations a strong head-start and competitive advantage with respect to receiving CMMC certification.
Exostar is conducting a CMMC webinar on October 24th featuring Katie Arrington, the Chief Information Security Officer for the Assistant Secretary for Defense Acquisition. With speakers from A&D industry prime contractors including BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, the Exostar webinar offers companies throughout the DoD supply chain a comprehensive perspective about CMMC requirements, timing, and certification procedures and enforcement so they can prepare now and minimize business impact later. (Source: BUSINESS WIRE)
08 Oct 19. DOD Looks to Future of Logistics. The most junior personnel in logistics today are going to have to come up with creative ideas on how to set and sustain a theater of operations for logistics, resupply and repair in a new world dominated by global power competition, a senior Defense Department official said.
During the fall meeting of the National Defense Transportation Association and the U.S. Transportation Command in St. Louis, today, Robert H. McMahon, assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, pointed over the heads of older transportation and logistics leaders gathered near the front of the conference and placed responsibility for the future on the shoulders of the young and creative.
“If you are a program manager in the private sector, 10 years from now you could be the CEO responsible for helping develop that solution,” McMahon said. “If you are a field grade officer, you are going to be one of the flag officers in the future that will be executing in that environment. And if you are young company grade officer, you will be one of those commanders responsible for achieving that which you are asked to do, and leading men and women to protect this nation and preserve it as it exists.”
McMahon said the status quo for getting materiel and people around the globe is no longer sufficient. He cited logistics support to Afghanistan as it relates to the 2010 coup in Kyrgyzstan and the shuttering of the Pakistan Ground Lines of Communication in 2011 to illustrate that what worked before can’t be expected to be options in the future.
“We were flying everyone to Afghanistan though Manas and running our tanker operations out of Manas,” McMahon said, referring to an air base in Kyrgyzstan. “A coup takes place in Kyrgyzstan. In a matter of about four of five days, we simply swing the effort to move through Kuwait.”
When the Defense Department’s ground-based trans-Pakistan supply route into Afghanistan shut down in November 2011, “we simply began flying stuff in,” McMahon said.
There’s no guarantee that the United States will continue to have access to alternative options in the future, he said.
“The environment we face in the future will not allow us to do that,” McMahon said. “We need to find new solutions, new ideas. It begins with defining what it is we’re trying to achieve, and working back from that.”
Current senior leaders don’t have the answers for how the department will ensure continued access to all the places where the United States might operate in the future, he said, adding that he doesn’t have those answers, either. Instead, he said, today’s leaders need innovative and imaginative young people to help them think differently, because today’s environment demands that.
Challenges that have included cyber, weather, water and climate continue to involve violent extremist organizations, but now also include new adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, McMahon said.
Setting a theater of operations in the South Pacific will prove a daunting challenge, he added, considering the size of the Pacific and the chains of islands that exist there.
“We have got to set the theater and then set the theater in ways that we have not even begun to think about,” he said. “How do you get fuel to where you need to be? How do you take a new concept of operations that the Navy is talking about, or that the Air Force is talking about, in this enhanced agility, and the ability to sustain that? How do you get fuel to an F-35 when you don’t know where that F-35 is going to be four hours from now?”
Europe, he said, poses different challenges, including the rail system and other infrastructure that may not be able to support large-scale movement of military materiel.
“That’s not somebody’s problem,” he told the transportation-centric audience. “That’s our problem, in this room.”
McMahon cited the comic book detective Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist TV as an example of technology that seemed absurd when it debuted as fiction in the early 1960s, but has proven to have been prescient.
“What’s the transportation concept that we are drawing up today that’s just as absurd, that 10 years from now one of you will dream of — to be able to create, to be able to make happen — to give us what we need in this kind of environment?” McMahon challenged.
“The real challenge is for you … to be able to think about these questions, ponder these questions, debate these questions and … with your partners between military services, between the military and the private sector, between modes of transportation, to talk about what the solutions might look like as we get ready for the threat that may be here sooner than we think — or perhaps, if we don’t act, sooner than we are prepared for,” he said. (Source: US DoD)
08 Oct 19. IFS, the global enterprise applications company, today reaffirms its unwavering focus on customer value by revealing its new success service offerings. Part of IFS’s holistic approach to customer success, the new service and support offerings are engineered to deliver maximum value while ensuring predictable costs, timelines, and business outcomes to customers anywhere in the world.
For too long software vendors have neglected the importance of ensuring customer success beyond go-live. Recognising that the greatest business impact comes from getting the most from software throughout its lifecycle, IFS has introduced two new service offerings aimed specifically at helping customers maximise what their software can do and deliver. These offerings are designed to complement IFS’s fast-growing partner ecosystem and ensure ongoing customer success. The offerings are differentiated to cater to the needs of any business—from global enterprise-scale organisations looking to work extensively with a dedicated customer success team, to mid-sized companies that want right-sized application management and support (AMS) on an ongoing basis.
The new offering builds on IFS Gold and Platinum support and comprises IFS Select, IFS Success, and IFS Tools and Methodologies. Depending on the desired level of proactiveness and focus on business-oriented outcomes, customers can choose the model that suits them best.
IFS Select
- IFS Select is the ultimate engagement from IFS. It is a holistic services framework for customers that place IFS at the centre of their business strategy
- IFS proactively supports every element of a customer’s business from enabling data-driven strategic decision-making based on real-time data, to ongoing business support, on-site enterprise architects, IT change management, and everything in between
- IFS Select empowers customers to drive excellence in all areas of their business, aligning strategies between both organisations and maximising value in all lifecycle phases
IFS Success
IFS Success provides a services framework that allows customers to choose the outcome-based service components that they need relevant to their business priorities. The four pillars of IFS Success are:
- Value Assurance: Understanding the expected business value and running the initiatives needed to unlock it
- AMS (Application Management Services): Operational and expert application management with ongoing access to top-tier IFS experts as well as quick response and resolution times for any IFS-related request
- Safeguarding: Offering customers choice through an extensive network of specialist partners from system integrators, change management specialists, and boutique industry technology houses. IFS provides a structured engagement to secure the outcomes
- Customer Success Management: For customers leveraging two or more of the components above, IFS will work proactively to ensure the business is served in the best ways possible with continuous improvement and enhanced support models as required
IFS Tools and Methodologies
IFS is continuously improving the ways in which the software is deployed and utilised. The IFS methodology has been extended to include post-go-live value realisation and value maximisation phases to reflect customers’ evolving business needs. In addition, heavy investment has been made in the IFS Solution Composer to visualise IFS solutions as well as in the IFS Industry Accelerators to help customers go live better, faster, and adopt the software in the most cost-effective ways. Many customers have already benefited from significant reductions in time, cost and an enhanced return on investment.
“Our focus, as always, is on accelerating time to value for our customers,” IFS Senior Vice President of Consulting Stefano Mattiello said. “Beyond this we want to ensure that we empower our challenger customers and align to their business imperatives by offering a set of services that allow companies to drive incremental value from their IFS solutions beyond implementation. We are therefore providing a holistic set of services that allow for full lifecycle value creation. This is a clear statement that we are totally focused on our customers and drive more business benefits.”
Learn more about the IFS service offering at www.ifs.com/uk/services/.
08 Oct 19. US Navy’s guided missile cruiser Hué City to undergo modernisation. The US Navy’s Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Hué City (CG 66) has arrived at Norfolk Naval Base to undergo major overhaul and modernisation work.
USS Hué City has joined the Cruiser Modernization programme after conducting operations across the world for 25 years.
Under the programme, the ship will undergo extensive modernisation work during its availability at the base.
The upgrades will help extend the ship’s service life and air defence commander capabilities. The cruiser will be under the administrative control of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) Commander.
NAVSEA surface ship modernisation programme manager captain Kevin Byrne said: “The induction of Hué City is a major milestone for the CG Mod programme, said, for surface ship modernisation. Her upcoming overhaul will not only extend the life of this critical capability, but will help the navy on its mission to grow the fleet and expand our warfighting advantage.”
The CG Modernization programme involves the integration of the latest technologies in combat systems and engineering in the ships. During the period, upgrades will be provided to Hué City’s structural, mechanical, and combat systems. The modernisation will enable the ship to return to the fleet at peak technical readiness and remain operational through the 2030s.
As part of the programme, the ship will undergo two smaller maintenance availabilities that involve the replacement of equipment and structural repairs. The two availabilities will be followed by a longer dry-docking availability for the installation of upgraded systems.
Hué City commanding officer lieutenant commander Ethan Reber said: “This was a tremendous effort between ship’s force, maintenance team, and other stakeholders. From the beginning, lessons learned from ships inducted earlier in the process, Gettysburg (CG 64), Vicksburg (CG 69), and Anzio (CG 68), were incorporated effectively into our planning.”
The ship is the seventh cruiser to be inducted into the programme.(Source: naval-technology.com)
07 Oct 19. Integrate cyber maintenance into the US Army’s battle rhythm. The U.S. Army continually transforms over time, and the latest iteration is the transformation to support the concept of Multi-Domain Battle. This concept describes how the Army will operate, fight and campaign successfully across space, cyberspace, air, land and maritime domains. While cyberspace is defined as a domain, it is not separate and integrates across all other domains. Maintaining cyber physical systems is critical to succeed across all domains.
Future conflict will likely unfold quickly and immediately initiate U.S. forces to move from current positions to theater. Therefore, readiness is key to success, and maintained equipment is a part of the preparation for these transitions to war fighting. That is a known fact.
Incrementally, over the last decades, cyber physical systems — which include all digital assets, computers and networking equipment — have been added to the inventory without a structured way to ensure the highest level of readiness. We propose that cyber maintenance is embedded in the maintenance cycle as any other military hardware. The cyber maintenance routine should go beyond the current checking of hardware against a ledger, and just capturing the presence of hardware, such as batteries, cables, switch boxes and antennas. What is important is to verify the actual functionality and the appropriate level of cybersecurity to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of these assets.
Tasks performed during cyber maintenance can be exemplified by updating firmware, software and password-maintenance plans; verifying antivirus and malware signatures are up to date; ensuring host-based and network-based firewalls are properly configured; and testing functionality by executing a set of operational tasks.
The Army and the other branches of the Department of Defense have structured maintenance plans that are executed to ensure unit readiness and the functionality of the equipment. The execution of these plans is monitored by commanders and thorough inspections. For example, many units conduct motor pool maintenance once a week where soldiers conduct preventive maintenance checks and services, or PMCS, on their vehicles. As of today, a PMCS for cyber maintenance has not been built into these programs. However, the amount of time to secure our systems is increasing as we add more physical cyber systems to the battlefield.
The war fighter preparing for the future fight must be able to trust the cyber equipment’s readiness, and the absence of ordered cyber maintenance is an ongoing vulnerability. This issue must be addressed immediately since we in competition in cyberspace. Either consciously or unconsciously, there is an assumption that there will be time to sort this out as a future conflict unfolds. We already know that such an assumption is spurious; there will not be time to address cyber maintenance during conflict, and then, as a result, we enter the conflict with insecure, unpatched and vulnerable equipment.
Our near-peer adversaries are skilled and potentially have the ability to target networked update servers, which would deny us the ability to patch and update in the early stage of a conflict. There could even be false updating sites and patches, exploiting the lack of order in our patch management. We consider it to be a major vulnerability to wait until the last minute to patch and update the cyber equipment. There is a tangible need to address this immediately and integrate cyber maintenance into the command maintenance program.
The cyber maintenance routines are trained and manifested in a cyber-secure culture that is reoccurring, structured and supported from the top, down. The alternative is to rely on personal interest. Even if updates are pushed out by security administrators, there is no verification that the updates are done. Once cyber maintenance is built into the Command Maintenance Program, it becomes an integrated part of the maintenance cycle, and assesses through the Command Inspection Program.
Cyber maintenance must be a topic taught at all levels of leadership schools (noncommissioned officer courses, the Captains Career Course, intermediate-level education and senior service colleges) because cybersecurity that doesn’t have leadership buy-in will fail.
Physical cyber systems have been integrated step-wise into traditional systems within Army units over the last few decades, which might be an explanation for why cyber maintenance programs have not been put in place. There has not been an overnight transformation similar to when the Army became motorized. A hundred years ago, when the Army became motorized, it was a concentrated, defining shift that required retraining and the establishment of motor-maintenance procedures. It is time to recognize the increased reliance on computer and digital assets, and integrate cyber maintenance as a part of how we do business. It is long overdue. (Source: Fifth Domain)
05 Oct 19. US Army announces new push to get 3D printing, advanced manufacturing to troops in the field. The secretary of the Army announced an advanced manufacturing policy this week that looks to use technologies like 3D-printing, robotics, artificial intelligence and composite materials to change everything from how soldiers fix equipment in the field, to how much their weapon systems weigh.
As opposed to an armor brigade combat team requesting replacement parts from a warehouse 1,000 miles away, troops could eventually have a 3D-printer churning them out inside the Conex box of a sustainment brigade, putting an Abrams tank back into the fight faster and cheaper.
Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy said the initiative he signed will put strategic guidance out to the service and industry partners to indicate that Army leaders will be putting the resources, people and funding into advanced manufacturing technology in future funding plans.
“We’re already doing it in 2021, but we needed to get more aggressive so we could have a comprehensive approach,” McCarthy told Army Times.
The Army has had some success in looking at advanced manufacturing concepts, such as the work done in 3D-printing at Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, where a Center of Excellence for Advanced and Additive Manufacturing was stood up in May.
“We want to now tie that with all the research and development efforts that we have with Army Futures Command, bring [Army Materiel Command] together,” McCarthy said. “Dr. [Bruce D.] Jette, our acquisition executive, puts this policy together, works with industry to have a more comprehensive approach.”
What does advance manufacturing look like?
Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, composite materials and machine learning have already brought a new industrial revolution to private industry, according to Dr. Alexis L. Ross, a deputy assistant Army secretary for strategy and acquisition reform.
“This is a significant step forward in manufacturing and design,” Ross said, recalling one of the times she visited an Army vendor’s facilities where they were developing composite materials.
“An interesting composite material where they were taking silicon and metal and essentially fusing it together,” she said. “And that silicon-metal composite ends up being flexible, light weight, resilient, heat resistant … it’s got these combinations of great physical properties.”
This technology is already available today in the civilian world. A Boeing 737 flying commercially can have parts throughout the airframe that are 3D printed.
Other services, like the Air Force, are already doing this as well.
If private industry and the Air Force can put 3D-printed parts into their aircraft, “why can’t we put that on a ground combat vehicle?” McCarthy said.
So what does it mean for brigade combat teams?
Army leaders hope advanced manufacturing will have two key benefits.
First, it’s expected to reduce the cost of equipment and parts: “If you can produce them much faster, and have them on hand, you can reduce costs because you can be lighter,” McCarthy said.
Second, the technology could significantly enhance the Army’s logistics train, helping its forces fight further away from the U.S. industrial base.
“If you had an expeditionary capability, for example, to print parts, you’d be able to extend the range of a brigade combat team,” McCarthy said. “Their ability to replace parts quickly, doing it within hours, as supposed to weeks. … There’s an immediate return where you can put it in to tactical formations.”
The effort could also help increase operational rates for legacy equipment by shortening the supply chain back to the manufacturer, which may or may not have the right spare parts immediately available.
Those parts, thanks to things like composite materials, could also weigh substantially less.
“A key principle in manufacturing weapons systems is how do you find ways to reduce the weight of the weapon system so it is faster and it can carry more weapons or avionics payloads, because you reduced the weight of parts,” McCarthy said.
Moving forward on advanced manufacturing is necessary to keep pace with the United States’ peer adversaries, namely China, according to Ross.
“China has been investing significantly,” she said. “They’re predicted to be the largest user of robotics in production by the year 2025. They just bought 400,000 3D-printers and they’re putting them in every elementary school in the next two years.
“If we don’t start taking action, we will fall behind and we need to catch up,” she added. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
07 Oct 19. Titomic signs additive manufactured component agreement with Gilmour. Australia-based Titomic and Queensland-based Gilmour Space Technologies have joined forces to develop and promote the use of Titomic’s digital manufacturing solutions, including Titomic Kinetic Fusion, to produce high-performance rocket and aerospace components.
Titomic and Gilmour have signed a statement of strategic intent and technical development that will facilitate their co-operation across multiple exciting fields within the global space industry.
James Gilmour, Gilmour Space co-founder and chief operating officer, stated, “Gilmour Space is developing new launch vehicles to support today’s global small satellite market, and this partnership could see us leveraging on Titomic’s innovative manufacturing processes to produce lighter and stronger components for our orbital launch vehicles.”
The areas of co-operation are:
- Performing R&D works to fabricate and produce rocket components using Titomic’s TKF systems;
- Explore, design and develop a digital manufacturing process to deliver high performance rocket components; and
- The production of rocket and space components to benefit Australia’s future space exploration activities.
Titomic was incorporated in 2014 to commercialise a new solid-state metal additive manufacturing technology, developed by the CSIRO, known as Titomic Kinetic Fusion (TKF).
The technology enables both manufacturing of large-size metal parts and high-volume production of complex-shaped parts of dissimilar metals.
Nathanael Miller, chief technology officer of Titomic, stated, “I am excited to get started on our joint tech-development program. Between the Gilmour Space focus on launch economics and the scale and quality performance of Titomic Kinetic Fusion capabilities, I am expecting significant implications for the launch vehicle community.”
Jeff Lang, Titomic founder and managing director, echoed Miller’s sentiments, saying, “This is an exciting new development for Titomic to share a commercially strategic vision to deliver unique capabilities of advanced technologies to assure growth of the Australian space eco-system.
“The Gilmour Space strategy, for lower cost access to launch satellites into space by affordable high-performance rockets, is in synergy with Titomic’s capability to provide an affordable alternative to traditional manufacturing by utilising the unique capabilities of Titomic Kinetic Fusion (TKF) technology.”
With a current capability at Titomic’s Melbourne bureau to manufacture titanium and other metal parts of up to nine metres long and three metres wide, the TKF technology is currently the only metal additive manufacturing process (3D printing) capable of manufacturing rockets in a single piece as well as other space components. (Source: Space Connect)
04 Oct 19. USN pushes carriers through maintenance availabilities. Having completed its Tailored Ship’s Training Availability/Final Evaluation Problem (TSTA/FEP) in the latter half of September, aircraft carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower (CVN 69) is gearing up for its Integrated Phase of the Optimized Fleet Response Plan as the ship transitions back to the fleet following its recent extensive maintenance availability. Those availabilities are key to maintaining overall US Navy (USN) fleet strength with carriers anchoring the USN global deployment strategy. The USN has begun to hone its execution of those carrier maintenance availabilities. For example, when USS Nimitz (CVN 68) completed docking planned incremental availability (DPIA) on 27 May at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility four days ahead of schedule, that marked the seventh consecutive early or on-time completion of an aircraft carrier availability at that facility. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
03 Oct 19. PAC Kamra rolls out its first locally overhauled JF-17 Thunder aircraft. The first JF-17 Thunder multirole combat aircraft overhauled in Pakistan was rolled out during a ceremony held on 26 September at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) Kamra. The move comes nearly 10 years after the first JF-17, which was jointly developed by China and Pakistan, rolled off the production line there.
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF’s) Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan, said during the ceremony: “We are living in a technology-intensive world, where self-reliance and indigenisation are key to effectively addressing modern challenges. [The] PAF has been relentlessly pursuing these goals and has now achieved this remarkable capability”.
Work on the JF-17 maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) project has been under way since 2017. The chief engineer of JF-17 MRO, a wing commander who did not want to be named, had told Jane’s in April, “We have been overhauling Chinese aircraft for the past few decades, so we took the initiative and developed our own JF-17 overhaul facility here in the Aircraft Repair Factory [ARF].”
“We developed the overhaul package, but to have it validated by the Chinese we sent two, effectively pattern aircraft to Changsha, in China during 2017,” he added. Changsha is the 5712 Aircraft Industry Co., which operates under state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).
Around the same time, the ARF started working on two JF-17s, in tandem with the two aircraft in China, with the wing commander stressing that “we carried out all the work here ourselves using our own procedures”.
The two jets overhauled in China were back at PAC Kamra by April, when the ARF was working on a third aircraft. There are plans for five more aircraft to be overhauled at the factory in 2019, and a new hangar currently under construction will open next year, allowing 20 aircraft to be overhauled in 2020. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
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About Oshkosh Defense
Oshkosh Defense is a leading provider of tactical wheeled vehicles and life cycle sustainment services. For decades Oshkosh has been mobilizing military and security forces around the globe by offering a full portfolio of heavy, medium, light and highly protected military vehicles to support our customers’ missions. In addition, Oshkosh offers advanced technologies and vehicle components such as TAK-4® independent suspension systems, TerraMax™ unmanned ground vehicle solutions, Command Zone™ integrated control and diagnostics system, and ProPulse® diesel electric and on-board vehicle power solutions, to provide our customers with a technical edge as they fulfill their missions. Every Oshkosh vehicle is backed by a team of defense industry experts and complete range of sustainment and training services to optimize fleet readiness and performance. Oshkosh Defense, LLC is an Oshkosh Corporation company [NYSE: OSK].
To learn more about Oshkosh Defense, please visit us at www.oshkoshdefense.com.
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