MANAGEMENT ON THE MOVE
LOCATIONS
21 Aug 08. Under a 15-year deal with the Ministry of Defence, the historic BAE systems factory at Birtley in Gateshead is to be pulled down and replaced with a new one in a contract which could be worth up to £3bn. It is a complete turn around for the 325 staff at the site who feared for their futures just seven years ago. The Chronicle launched a Save Birtley Arms Factory campaign in 2001 after it was revealed the axe hung over the Royal Ordnance factory – then owned by British Aerospace. MPs took the battle to Parliament and the plant was eventually spared. Now the site is looking to the future with a promise of £28m to be ploughed into it. (See below: UK TROOPS TO BENEFIT FROM £2 BILLION MUNITIONS PARTNERING DEAL)(Source: Google)
18 Aug 08. Defence Minister A K Antony has said the new unit of State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), being set up in the northern Kasargod district, will go on stream in 15 months. Antony, who was instrumental in getting the missile-manufacturing Brahmos to set up shop in Thiruvananthapuram, thanked the Left-ruled State Government for paving the way for the strategic units to come
to Kerala. Politics would not stand in the way of the Federal Government sanctioning development schemes in various parts of the country, depending on the location advantage available in each State, he said. Antony will lay the foundation stone for the Rs660m first phase of HAL’s Hyderabad avionics division on 200 acres, leased out from Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corp (Kinfra) at Seethamgoli near Kumbala in the northern district bordering Karnataka, on August 23. (Source: Google/THE PENINSULA)
04 Aug 08. Corsham 09: New Defence Centre. The Junior Defence Minister announced (4 Aug 08) plans for a major new Defence Centre in North Wiltshire. The project, known as Corsham 09, is to accommodate 2,200 Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) personnel and their Industry partners on the Basil Hill site in Corsham. The Private Finance Initiative contract for the site is worth £690m over 25 years. Units which are to be based on the site include DE&S Information Systems & Services and 2 (National Communications) Signal Brigade. Construction is to start in 2008 and all major building work is to take place during the following three years.
Comment: The contract includes “management of the Corsham underground area”. This World War 2 ammunition manufacturing complex is well worth a visit, should the opportunity arise. (Source: DNA DEFENCE NEWS ANALYSIS, Issue 0832, 18 Aug 08)
20 Aug 08. Babcock Marine helps Successor team manage project risk. Babcock Marine, the through-life defence support specialist, has installed the Active Risk Management (ARM) commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) system at its Keynsham Data Centre, making it available for the Future Submarines Integrated Project Team (FSM IPT) and multi-sited alliance team to securely manage future deterrent programme and project risks. The Strategic Deterrent Programme Support Office (SDPSO) and collaborative FSM IPT Successor submarine team (MoD, BAE Systems, Babcock Marine and Rolls Royce) will use the ARM system through the FSM community Collaborative Working Environment (CWE). Developed by Babcock Marine, the CWE provides a secure web-based workspace, enabling members from disparate organisations to work together within a single secure environment. The CWE currently has some 2,500 users across MoD IPTs, naval bases, submarines and industrial contractors, and offers an integrated toolset (including a single sign-on portal; business process automation workflow toolkit; advanced, secure document management vault; and business intelligence data mining and reporting tool). This provides full end-to-end process management for web-enabled virtual project teams, with access and security managed at community, project and/or user level.
PERSONNEL
MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT
05 Aug 08. HQ 6th (UK) Division: Form