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23 March 2004 |
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http://business.scotsman.com/technology.cfm?id=335442004 |
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MENTION the word laser to James Bond fans and their minds will flick to Goldfinger and the scene in which Sir Sean comes perilously close to being cut down in his prime. The industrial laser featured in 007’s famous 1964 outing was probably, forgive the pun, at the cutting edge of technology for the time. Forty years on, however, lasers come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the miniscule devices at the heart of every CD and DVD player to scientific Goliaths which, for a fraction of a second, can produce a pulse equivalent to 1300 times the entire electrical generating capacity of the United States. Over the years, laser beams have even been used to measure the average distance between the centres of the Earth and the Moon. Now defence giant BAE Systems has its sights set on airspace rather than outer space following the creation of a new multi-million pound Laser Centre of Excellence in the Capital. The state-of-the-art laboratory, officially opened last night by Enterprise Minister Jim Wallace, has been built primarily to design and manufacture thousands of military lasers for American and British F35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft. But the firm, whose Avionics Group employs more than 2000 people in Edinburgh, will also be targeting fresh overseas orders following the centre’s opening. It is hoped the landmark JSF deal agreed last September with Lockheed Martin - the largest ever airborne laser contract - will prompt a wave of new business for the Edinburgh complex. In addition, the £4 million laser centre is expected to sustain at least 100 highly skilled engineering posts at BAE’s Crewe Toll site. Paul Holbourn, capability director at the group’s Sensor Systems Division, says the centre of excellence represents a "significant investment" in the site and in the future of the business as a whole. He adds: "We were delighted to be awarded the JSF laser designator contract by Lockheed Martin which confirmed our position as one of the industry leaders worldwide in the development of laser technology. This facility is testimony to the expertise we have within the business." Site and operations director Graham Russell believes the scale of the JSF project has given the firm a financial competitive edge. "This programme puts us very much in the driving seat," he says. "An order of 3000 units is a very big number. We have more buying power then anyone in the world in terms of components, which means we can lower the costs of production. "Although we’ve been building military lasers for the last 30 years, it’s been a lot of legacy business. For the last decade, a lot of the products have been coming to the end of their life cycle. This contract was key to the decision on whether we continued on manufacturing this technology." Military experts reckon the supersonic JSF will be one of the last military planes to be manned by humans as new pilot-less technologies develop. If the programme is successful, more orders could come from other countries including Italy and Australia. According to senior managers at BAE, the Lockheed Martin contract has opened the door to the potentially lucrative US laser market. Clovis Younger, programme manager for BAE’s Targeting Lasers Electro Optics Group, says: "On the laser side of things, business in the US has been pretty limited. The Americans are wary of buying critical components from non-US sources. By doing this contract, we get a seal of quality for supplying into other American military programmes." In military hardware terms, the locally-designed laser will provide the JSF’s targeting system with a precision range measurement and a laser-guided weapon designation capability. The design and development stage will pave the way for full-scale manufacturing in about two years’ time. At the heart of the new centre lies 4000sq ft of flexible manufacturing space and 21 dedicated laser-firing rooms. They are equipped with individual environmental controls to meet the testing standards required to produce high-power laser products. BAE’s Sensor Systems Division has a 30-year heritage of designing laser technology for applications such as range finding and target designation. During that time, the company has produced some 4500 military lasers for more than 25 different platforms in over 20 countries. BAE’s laser systems, which were attached to light gun artillery pieces, allowed British troops to fire accurately during the worst sand storms of the recent Gulf war. Mr Holbourn points out that lasers are set to remain a crucial part of BAE’s business in the future. He adds: "Our involvement in transatlantic partnerships is growing, and we were delighted when Lockheed Martin gave our facilities a score of 91 per cent on a recent JSF audit. "The contract has highlighted our capability to deliver the technology and this new laser centre ensures that we have the production capacity to deliver the goods, enabling us to continue to compete globally with the demands of large-scale production." The F35 deal has also become the impetus for investing in new research and development capability. BAE has invested hundreds of thousands of pounds co-developing, with a Boston-based company, an automated assembly machine - the first of its kind in the world - that can fine tune the optical part of radar systems to increase reliability and cost effectiveness. That technology will now also be applied to the UK group’s laser systems. Although some industry analysts have warned that BAE could be vulnerable to future cutbacks in defence spending, site and operations director Mr Russell stresses that the laser development work is not as likely to be affected because of a growing worldwide demand for the technology. The defence industry is also welcoming last week’s budget announce-ment that spending on defence will actually rise in real terms. Annual sales in the UK defence industry are currently running at £14 billion, of which some £9bn are to the Ministry of Defence. Britain is the second-largest defence exporter in the world. Last year, the Ministry of Defence spent some £29bn, with about 40 per cent of that total being spent on equipment and the remainder on personnel. A spokesman for the Society of British Aerospace Companies, whose members include BAE, Rolls-Royce and Smiths Group, says: "The proposed real terms increase in defence spending is good news - we were expecting significant cuts in the overall spend on defence. "But we have to wait and see what the detail is to see how much more will actually be allocated for procurement." Late last week it emerged that the British and Indian governments had signed a memorandum of understanding clearing the way for BAE to sell 66 Hawk training jets to the Indian air force. The Indian authorities first expressed interest in the Hawk trainer jet during the mid-80s but it was not until five months ago they finally committed to a deal, worth almost £800m. Friday’s announcement means a contract is a formality. High-flying double act prepares for take-off BAE Systems and Italy’s Finmeccanica are to form two new joint ventures, including a combined avionics business, it was announced yesterday. The pair said they had agreed in principle the operations to be included in their previously announced electronics joint ventures and also outlined their respective valuations. The two defence equipment firms signed a tentative agreement to form the joint ventures last July. One of the tie-ups will be an avionics business to be majority owned by Finmeccanica, focusing on sensors, airborne radar and electronic warfare systems. The other will be a systems integration operation, to be majority owned by BAE, focusing on information and combat management systems as well as land and naval radar. In addition, the Italian group, through Marconi Selenia Communications, will acquire the relevant BAE communications operations in the UK. It has also been agreed in principle that Finmeccanica will acquire the Air Traffic Management activities of Alenia Marconi Systems. The overall turnover of the activities involved in the transaction is around £2.5 billion. In a joint statement, Sir Richard Evans and Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, the chairmen of the respective parent companies, said: "Achieving this milestone is further evidence of the developing strategic relationships between our two groups. The agreement represents the major decision point to progress to complete this transaction by mid-year." The next step is for the companies to conduct due diligence and prepare the contractual documents. |
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21 March 2004 |
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http://www.sundayherald.com/40765 |
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BAE Systems, which last Friday confirmed a £795 million order for Hawk trainer jets from the Indian government, is expecting a further surge of new overseas orders following the opening of its £4m Laser Centre of Excellence in Edinburgh. The specially-fitted laboratory, to be unveiled this week by Enterprise Minister Jim Wallace, has predominantly been built to design and manufacture 3000 military lasers for American and British Joint Strike Fighter planes. BAE Avionics has agreed to deliver qualified lasers to be tested in aircraft by 2005 and full-scale manufacturing will take place between 2007-2025. A further £4m will be invested in product and facility development at the centre over the next two years. But more significantly, it is hoped the deal agreed with Lockheed Martin last autumn, which is worth "several hundred millions" of dollars and is the largest ever airborne laser contract, will kickstart a wave of new business for the laser centre. Industry experts have predicted that the supersonic F35 JSF aircraft will be the last military planes to be manned by humans as new technologies develop. If the programme is successful, more orders could come from other countries including Australia and Italy. And according to senior managers, the F35 JSF contract has opened the door to the much-coveted American laser market. Clovis Younger, programme manager for BAE's Targeting Lasers Electro Optics Group, said: "On the laser side of things, business in the US has been pretty limited. The Americans are wary of buying critical components from non-US sources. By doing this contract, we get a seal of quality for supplying into other American military programmes." Graham Russell, operations and site director with BAE's Sensor Systems division, added that the scale of the project has given them a financial competitive edge. "This programme puts us very much in the driving seat. An order of 3000 units is a very big number. We have more buying power then anyone in the world, in terms of components, which means we can lower the costs of production." The division has a 30-year heritage of designing laser technology for applications such as range finding and target designation. The company's laser systems, which were attached to light gun artillery pieces, allowed British troops to fire accurately during the worst sand storms of the recent Gulf war. However, Russell said that business had for the most part dwindled to maintaining and upgrading its 4500 lasers operating around the world. He said: "Although we've been building military lasers for the last 30 years, it's been a lot of legacy business. For the last decade, a lot of the products have been coming to the end of their life cycle. This contract was key to the decision on whether we continued on manufacturing this technology." The contract has secured 100 highly-skilled jobs in Edinburgh and has become the impetus for investing in new research and development. BAE has spent £650,000 to co-develop with a Boston-based company an automated-assembly machine - the first of its kind in the world - that can fine-tune the optical part of radar systems to increase reliability and cost effectiveness. That technology will now also be applied to its laser systems. While analysts have recently cautioned that BAE Systems could be vulnerable to Ministry of Defence budget cutbacks, Russell maintained that the laser programmes were not as likely to be affected because of a growing requirement for this technology. Although not providing any details, the company also admitted that the recent war on terrorism and events in Iraq had led to new contracts for lasers as well as other parts of the overall business. Meanwhile, the memorandum signed last week with the Indian government will safeguard an order of 66 BAE-built trainer jets placed last September. The proposal has been delayed by more than a decade because of disagreements over the cost of the plane and where the aircraft would be assembled.
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