Page 50 - Australian Defence Magazine Feb 2020

50
FROM THE SOURCE CHRIS DEEBLE
FEBRUARY 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
CHRIS DEEBLE
CHIEF EXECUTIVE NORTHROP GRUMMAN AUSTRALIA
Northrop Grumman Australia has moved ahead in leaps and bounds with growth on a number of capability fronts. ADM Managing Editor Katherine Ziesing sat
down with Chief Executive Chris Deeble to have a look at the year ahead for the company.
ADM: Northrop Grumman Australia has come a long way since acquiring Qantas Defence Services in 2013 and M5 Networks in 2012 – what does the business look like now in terms of capabilities in Australia?
DEEBLE: We’re in a very interesting period of the growth of Northrop Grumman in Australia. We have fully absorbed the old QDS business that came from Qantas and we’ve also fully absorbed the M5 business
ADM: On the platform front the signature program in Aus- tralia for Northrop Grumman would be the Triton remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). Can you give us an update on the Triton program from both the US Navy (USN) and Austra- lian perspectives?
DEEBLE: At this point in time they’re progressing pretty well. It’s a collaborative and cooperative program with the USN. I have a view that these co- operative programs get you inside the tent with a significant opportunity to actually influence those outcomes. At Northrop Grumman Australia my goal is to play a more significant role in in- fluencing those outcomes. We’re trying to work very closely with the Australian customer now to understand what that need is and help them develop an inte- grated master schedule for transition of the capability into service, where we believe that we can bring to bear the Northrop Grumman experiences with Triton and Global Hawk from the US context and hopefully assist in de-risk-
into the broader Northrop Grumman framework. By the end of 2019, we were about 600 people; so we’re still a growing organisation with plans to grow further in the future.
Prior to me arriving at Northrop Grumman realised the corporation determined that they rather than be- ing a company that does business in- ternationally, they wanted to become an international business and identi- fied Australia as one of the prime areas where they would demonstrate that. Subsequently, decisions were made to actually make investments in the Northrop Grumman capability in Aus- tralia. Currently in the States at the corporate level there are eight mission campaigns, Australia is one of those eight mission campaigns; no other country that Northrop Grumman does business in is captured at that level.
A key element of the Australian
campaign and the investment to be
made was establishing the capability
for Northrop Grumman to be a prime
system integrator (PSI) in Australia, which means we’re es- tablishing a PSI operating model that would allow us to take on significant system of systems delivery as a prime system integrator, and for us to take on the prime role on some of those significant system of system programs here in Australia. Some of these key programs will include like Integrated Air and Missile Defence under Air 6500 and ad- vanced satellite communications under JP 9102.
PROFILE
2019–PRESENT Northrop Grumman Australia – Chief Executive
2016–2019 Air Services Australia – OneSKY Program Executive
2002–2006 Capability Development Group – DG Aerospace
1999–2002 Air Force Headquarters Director Capability Management
1996–1998 82WG Executive Officer
1995–1996 1SQN Executive Officer
1990–1995 F111 Avionics Update Program
1990 ADFA Squadron Commander
1980–1990 Operational Flying Rles on F-111s
1980–1981 Navigator Training
2006–2016 DMO and CASG Program Manager on JSF, MRTT, Collins submarine, AEW&C – retired as AVM
ing the transition here in Australia.
We are currently working with our Australian customer, and coordinating with our US compatriots to try and op- timise the outcomes for Australia and minimise the risk of introducing that into service. We’re just about to see the firstcoupleofTritonsdeployedtoGuam which will be an important learning point for us and we know that our Aus- tralian customers working closely with USN to leverage any of the lessons learnt, to look at the per- formance, to understand the sustainment in that deployed context. Where Northrop Grumman Australia will play a role is establishing a capability here in Symonston to be able to play back sensor data mission data and explore operational scenarios using model based system engineering. We’re also
CONTINUED ON PAGE 48
1976–1978UniversityofSydneylBachelor of Science (Pure and Applied Maths