MANAGEMENT ON THE MOVE

LOCATIONS

15 Jul 08. GKN and Airbus Continue Talks. Negotiations between Airbus and GKN for the sale of the Filton Operations continue to make good progress. Associated A350XWB package negotiations also continue to make good progress. Given the complexity of both the sale of Filton Operations and the award of associated
A350XWB packages, it is difficult to predict when a conclusion may be reached. However, both parties remain optimistic of an early conclusion. Both Airbus and GKN continue to keep key stakeholders, including all affected employees, the Trade Unions and the UK and regional Government agencies, informed of progress.

15 Jul 08. The Navy announced that the next two Virginia-class attack submarines will be named the USS Minnesota and the USS North Dakota. The selection of Minnesota, designated SSN 783, honors the state’s citizens and their continued support to our nation’s military. Minnesota has a long tradition of honoring its veterans of wars past and present. The state is proud to be home to 46 Medal of Honor recipients that span from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. This will be the third ship to bear the state name. The first USS Minnesota, a sailing steam frigate, was commissioned in 1857 and served during the Civil War, remaining in service until her decommissioning in 1898. The second Minnesota was commissioned in 1907. On December 16, 1907 she departed Hampton Roads as one of the 16 battleships of the Great White Fleet sent by President Theodore Roosevelt on a voyage around the world. She continued her service through World War I, and was decommissioned in 1921.

16 Jul 08. Since the opening of The Portal in July 2007, QinetiQ and The Boeing Company have conducted a broad spectrum of training events, demonstrations and classified experiments in support of numerous UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and industry programs. The Portal has successfully supported more than 130 separate activities ranging in scale from half-day workshops to multi-week experiments, and has met all requirements. The state-of-the-art decision-support capability at QinetiQ’s Cody Technology Park site in Farnborough, England, is enabling customers to explore and understand implications of proposed network-enabled systems in a real-time, dynamic environment featuring the latest in modeling, simulation, analysis and experimentation techniques and tools. QinetiQ and Boeing have undertaken several joint activities, but most projects have been in support of individually managed programs. Customers have been testing logistical requirements across a wide range of existing and future operational settings and against a variety of threats. Experiment designers create enhanced environments with multiple concurrent activities to compare the effectiveness and survivability of competing systems, test future scenarios and assess potential solutions before they are delivered to the front line. Operators have also addressed the interoperability issues of coalition warfighting through combinations of live assets and virtual simulations.

16 Jul 08. Lockheed Martin UK unveiled an enhanced Swift Laboratory during this year’s Farnborough Air Show. The Swift, located in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre, is an innovative and interactive research and development laboratory. Recent upgrades include new assets focused on national security, network-enable operations and fighter aircraft simulators. Swift continues to evolve in the sophistication of its in-depth simulations. Real systems using real data can be analysed using actual communications networks to both test and stress systems and operations. Environments also can be established for work in both classified and unclassified environments. To demonstrate Swift’s capabilities during the show, specific scenarios were run that featured national security and joint operations themes. The Swift environment demonstrates how the seamless integration of real-time data,