BAE Systems Australia selects four shipbuilding innovators
BAE Systems Australia’s recently re-named shipbuilding business has selected four Australian companies to help fast track world-leading manufacturing processes following the company’s first ‘innovation challenge’ to support the Hunter Class Frigate Program.
BAE Systems Maritime Australia (formerly ASC Shipbuilding) is running progressive ‘innovation challenges’ as the Hunter Program ramps up to identify Australian technologies that can support and deliver efficiencies to the program. The winning companies from the first challenge are:
- Datanet (SA)
- Lamson Concepts (NSW)
- Cohda Wireless (SA) and
- Dematec Automation (SA)
Over the course of the projects’ life-span, each of the selected Australian companies will showcase their logistics Track & Trace technologies at the Tonsley Innovation District in Adelaide.
The Hunter class frigate project will see BAE Systems Maritime Australia build nine anti-submarine warfare frigates at the significantly upgraded Osborne, SA, shipyard for the Royal Australian Navy.
At Tonsley, BAE Systems Maritime Australia has partnered with Flinders University to establish Line Zero – Pilot Factory of the Future, to collaborate with researchers, academics and technologists to test and trial advanced manufacturing technologies and techniques in a factory environment, before adapting them to the shipyard.
BAE Systems Maritime Australia Managing Director, Craig Lockhart, said: “Through these Innovation Challenges we have the potential to revolutionise the way the ships are constructed from the ground up, significantly improving efficiency and productivity. It’s the development of local technologies for this program that will underpin the development of sovereign capabilities needed for an enduring Australian shipbuilding industry.”