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17 Oct 19. US Navy to cease funding for Mikros Systems’ ADEPT programme. The US Navy has revealed plans to stop funding Mikros Systems’ (MKRS) Adaptive Diagnostic Electronic Portable Testset (ADEPT) programme for the fiscal year 2020. The department has been funding the development, production and sustainment of the company’s ADEPT product line since 2002. Earlier this month, Mikros received additional funding of more than $200k to provide engineering, technical and logistics support for its ADEPT maintenance workstation product. In the last twelve months, the US Navy funding for engineering and technical support of the ADEPT product line amounted to $2.75m. The funding decision will not affect the company’s other programmes that are being developed for the service, Mikros noted.
Mikros CEO Tom Meaney said: “Last week we had some bad news and also some very good news from the navy. On our flagship programme, the SYM-3 CBM system, we received a new delivery order from the navy in the amount of up to $15m to continue development and LCS installations. We are actively growing the SYM-3 programme for CBM applications on new equipment and new ship platforms, and we are confident that this recent order together with additional anticipated task orders under our $48m IDIQ Contract with Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division will help offset lost revenue from the ADEPT programme in 2020.”
As part of the ADEPT programme, the company has delivered more than 200 Mikros’ ADEPT maintenance workstations for use on navy platforms, including cruisers and destroyers. ADEPT performs preventive and corrective maintenance activities for complex electronic systems, such as the AN/SPY-1 radar. (Source: naval-technology.com)
18 Oct 19. Cummins debuts tactical energy storage unit for military use at AUSA. Cummins has introduced a tactical energy storage unit for military use during the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting & Exposition 2019 in the US.
The company stated that the new storage unit will improve the performance of its advanced medium mobile power sources (AMMPS) generators.
The product provides an integrated power system to support critical military operations.
It is designed to offer enhanced microgrid resilience and reliability while driving down generator maintenance costs.
Cummins Military Programs programme manager Doreen Swanson said: “The Tactical Energy Storage Unit is safe, quiet, and a high-quality product that we are pleased to bring to the US military.
“Cummins has an 80-year history of providing quality service and dependable power solutions to our armed forces and this builds on that legacy. It is an honour to provide products that have a direct impact on improving the safety and wellbeing of US military professionals in the field.”
The new energy storage unit comes with safety features to ensure reliable operation. These features include high-voltage interlock loop (HVIL) connectors and a master service disconnect component.
Mobile Electric Power Systems product manager lieutenant colonel Tony Leach said: “We are excited to learn more about the new capabilities the Tactical Energy Storage Unit system will offer.”
Using AMMPS with the tactical energy storage unit is expected to reduce the number of fuel transport runs due to improved fuel efficiency.
The system will also ensure quieter operation of the generators and help increase the safety of soldiers in a combat scenario.
Batteries used on the unit provide increased durability in extreme environmental conditions. (Source: army-technology.com)
16 Oct 19. CAE reveals MBT engine maintenance trainer availability. CAE announced at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual meeting in Washington, DC, in October that it was ready to deliver the first Abrams M1A2 main battle tank (MBT) engine maintenance trainer to the Manoeuvre Centre of Excellence at the US Army’s Armor School at Fort Benning, Georgia. The company said that the trainer has completed factory acceptance testing, will be shipped to Fort Benning in November, and be ready for training in December. The trainer consists of an Abrams engine integrated with a CAE-developed driver station and some of the other internal parts of the tank. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
14 Oct 19. BMT to offer Caimen 90 landing craft to ADF. BMT will offer the Caimen 90 Landing Craft for the Australian Army’s Land 8710 programme, the company announced on 10 October. Land 8710 Phase One is the army’s programme to replace its Mark 8 Landing Craft.
Designed to operate at high speeds with heavy payloads, the Caimen 90 will allow faster amphibious offload from host ships compared with slower, more conventional landing craft.
The vessel is capable of traveling at up to 30 knots, and has a tri-bow aluminium monohull and a bow and stern ramp, enabling roll-on, roll-off capability.
Peter Behrendt, defence and security managing director, BMT, said: ‘BMT is offered world leading capability in landing craft vessels to the Australian Army with the Caimen 90.
‘A variant of this vessel is already being built internationally, which shows it is a proven hull form and design.’ (Source: Shephard)
14 Oct 19. Is Congress in the dark on supply chain risk? Top senators on the Senate Homeland Security Committee warned the Office of Management and Budget Oct. 9 that IT professionals in Congress and the federal judiciary may not be getting all the supply chain risk information they need to secure their computer systems and networks as they make acquisitions. The senators wrote to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney ″urging” the Federal Acquisition Security Council (FASC) to develop a strategic plan for sharing supply chain security information with Congress and the judiciary. The letter is signed by Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc.; Ranking Member Gary Peters, D-Mich.; Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
The FASC is responsible for increasing information sharing within the federal government regarding supply chain risk and creating guidelines and practices for risk management. The FASC distributes the intelligence community’s supply change risk management (SCRM) threat analysis to federal civilian agencies making acquisitions decisions. But the senators said that the information from FASC is not reaching the other two branches of government and supply chain solutions that work for executive agencies don’t necessarily work for the “whole of government.”
“Neither Congress nor the Judiciary has the resources, expertise or mission to replicate the IC SCRM’s work, meaning that the comprehensive ‘whole of government’ approach the FASC was intended to achieve will likely only benefit one branch of the federal government,” the senators wrote. “This leaves Congress and the court at risk of introducing insecure [information and communications technology] that is vulnerable to the national security threats assessed by IC and the FASC.”
The senators noted several reports of adversaries targeting the court and congressional networks. Microsoft recently disclosed that several email accounts of government officials were targeted by the Iranian-backed hackers.
“The threat is not hypothetical,” they wrote. “Americans may accept the principle of separation of branches of government, but our adversaries don’t abide by that principle.”
11 Oct 19. Philippine air force reactivates seven old Huey helos thanks to spares from Japan. The Philippines is set to return more U.S.-built utility helicopters to its stretched helicopter fleet thanks to spare parts from Japan, even as the country continues to buy newer transport helicopters and is reportedly seeking more.
According to the government’s official newswire, Philippine Air Force (PAF) spokesman Maj. Aristides Galang said in a statement that seven Bell UH-1 “Huey” helicopters would be brought back to flying status using the spares donated by the Japanese government in March this year.
Galang was quoted by the Philippine News Agency as also saying that an inspection team from the PAF’s 205th Tactical Helicopter Wing visited the storage unit holding the spares earlier this month and found several items needed for restoring seven of the helicopters in operational status.
The inspected spare parts were main rotor blades, tail rotor blades, and tail rotor driveshafts, which were then turned over to the 205th Tactical Helicopter Wing the next day for restoration work on the helicopters. (Source: Defense News)
10 Oct 19. IFS lays out blueprint for new era of intelligent and autonomous enterprise solutions.
- Evolved architecture for service management, enterprise resource management (ERP), and enterprise asset management (EAM) for rapid innovation
- Previews technologies to power augmented/mixed reality-powered remote assistance, digital twins, and predictive maintenance
Boston, MA, IFS World Conference, 10 October, 2019 – IFS, the global enterprise applications company, today unveiled its evolved industry-focused architecture at IFS World Conference 2019 in Boston.
Faced with uncertainties driven by the pressures of digital transformation and threats of disruption, businesses around the world are in need of software vendors whose primary focus is on outcomes rather than exclusively on technology. Today, IFS demonstrated its outcome-centric approach by revealing its vision for how new technologies will be brought into its core application architecture and delivered to customers in context of their unique work and industry needs.
The evolved industry-focused architecture is scheduled for availability in 2020 and will be the new home to IFS’s entire portfolio of products across manufacturing, project management, and service solutions. In essence, this new approach will allow customers to integrate enabling technologies such as internet of things (IoT), augmented and mixed reality (AR/MR), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) in pragmatic and focused ways so they can optimise, automate, predict, and interact better across their business.
IFS has been evolving its technology foundations over an intensive and sustained period of engineering development. The focused work has encompassed model-driven declarative development, the intuitive IFS Aurena user experience (UX), and native API enablement of the entire set of capabilities. These enhancements will let IFS and its entire ecosystem innovate at a higher pace and deliver new functionality to customers faster.
Designed to ensure speed, elasticity, and choice, the evolved architecture is built for both cloud and on-premises using container technology and Kubernetes, which allows for running at hyper-scale in the cloud while ensuring portability across clouds and on-premise. It will provide data management and readiness that empowers customers to plug and play advanced technologies such as AI, ML, and robotic process automation (RPA) with any solution set in the IFS offering.
At the IFS World Conference this week, in front of thousands of attendees, IFS previewed how these technologies play in reality:
- Digital twins and monitoring of assets
- Real-time predictive maintenance planning
- AR/MR-powered remote assistance for service and maintenance scenarios
By establishing an ‘evergreen’ approach, IFS gives customers the option to always be on the latest version of their applications without the disruptions that come with full-scale upgrades. This also provides customers greater visibility, predictability, control, and flexibility in planning their own business development and adopting new capabilities from IFS.
“The blueprint my team has shared today is underwritten by a fully operational plan to deliver an open and scalable architecture to our customers with the right set of capabilities needed for their industries,” said IFS Chief Product Officer Christian Pedersen. “For IFS, this has always been about architecting a core for our applications that would be fundamentally open and enabled. With today’s announcement, we are demonstrating that we are delivering on the promise of a core that has choice quite literally built into it, enabling our customers to benefit faster and easier from new and emerging technologies in context of their business needs and opportunities.”
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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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