Page 64 - Australian Defence Magazine March 2019

FROM THE SOURCE
ROBERT NIOA
Continued from page 66
ADM: What is the relationship like with Thales given their long running incum- bency Benalla, both as ADI and now Thales/Australian Ammunitions? NIOA: There was initial competitive tension but the job that we were given by government was to look at the vacant buildings or seldom used buildings. The work we’re doing on site shouldn’t pose a direct commercial risk to Thales and, if anything, we are going to need to work with them going forward.
It is likely that we will actually allocate some work to them and value add oppor- tunities for them along the way. It’s taken a bit of adjustment for everyone but in reality I don’t think that there’s any great ongoing commercial pressure.
ADM: You mentioned DMMA be- fore and when that process fell over, the Major Munitions Contract (MMC) ar- rangements came into play; do you think they’re delivering value for money to the Commonwealth?
NIOA: Yes. Prior to MMC the Common- wealth was running a series of ad hoc pur- chases of product; some FMS, some direct commercial, and there was a lot of contract
churn. For the government to government purchases, there was an unknown timeline for delivery of product; it wasn’t necessarily new product, it wasn’t packaged in accor- dance with Australian Standards, there was a lot of rectification work happening in Aus- tralia, product being denied while it was be- ing held up and it wasn’t getting to soldiers.
It also didn’t come with the warranties, latent defect coverage and so on. The new arrangements provide all those things and along with value for money and a more transparent timeline for everyone involved.
So I think that it’s been a big success. Government has guaranteed delivery times for new product, packaged correctly and also reach-back for full engineering certifi- cation and lots of warranty and IP protec- tion which they didn’t necessarily have un- der the old ad hoc purchasing framework.
ADM: Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH (RWM) and NIOA are to de- velop a forging facility in Maryborough. What will that facility bring to the table for Defence?
NIOA: I’m very excited by this project as it’s the first activity of the joint venture. Rheinmetall NIOA Munitions is the new company. That company is going to be estab- lishing an artillery shell forging plant in Ma- ryborough, Qld. It will make 155mm artil- lery shells across a range of different designs but all within the Rheinmetall stable. That would be some of the German DM series artillery shells, as well as the Assegai family out of Rheinmetall Denel in South Africa.
The majority of sales from that factory will be export-focused. This will be a sec- ond location for Rheinmetall and we’ll be exporting product to the world market from there.
ADM: Do you have all the export clear- ances you need?
NIOA: Yes. As we get closer to full rate pro- duction, we will start to make announcements about the specific projects and customers but the markets that are identified are all market supported by the Australian government.
ADM: You have partnerships in place with dozens of international suppliers for various products but what does NIOA add to the mix for Defence programs? NIOA: We’re an Australian company and that has a certain value unto itself. When it comes to munitions and weapons systems that are highly technical, the Australian regulatory framework is different to every-
where else in the world. We certainly can provide that engineering support and so on, but I think that the Australian government likes to deal with an Australian company. International companies are looking to le- verage the infrastructure that we have.
We’ve got testing facilities, logistics facili- ties, engineering capability, access to exist- ing contracts, access to domestic supply chain and so on. We provide all of that to our international partners. Our customer is getting the international technology that we’re bringing in. So the customer is getting something out of it, and the international suppliers are getting a lot of value out of it.
ADM: You mentioned that regulatory framework, which is quite tight in Austra- lia when it comes to gun control and am- munition. Do you see that changing in the near future given the push to export De- fence industry?
NIOA: There appears to be an appetite in Defence for more industry involvement in the regulatory process. As far as certification of weapons systems or certification of muni- tions, there is a huge body of work coming with all of the projects that Australia has on the table over the next decade.
I think that there’s a shift in Defence’s ap- petite to engage industry to do a lot of that certification work.
Ultimately Defence will want to retain approval rights at various parts of the regu-
NIOA has transitioned from being an SME to work now more in the prime space.
64 | March 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au