Page 58 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2020

58 FROM THE SOURCE JOE NORTH
APRIL 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
JOE NORTH
LOCKHEED MARTIN AUSTRALIA AND NZ CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Lockheed Martin Australia is growing its business across a range of domains in country. From work on the Attack class as the Combat Systems Integrator to the Joint Strike Fighter, the company is expanding. ADM Managing Editor Katherine Ziesing spoke to Chief Executive Joe North about their work as the CSI and where the wider business is headed.
AADM: How is the Combat Systems Integration (CSI) effort for the Attack class submarine progressing?
NORTH: We’re pretty excited with our partners in Naval Group and the Commonwealth about the task ahead. We’re really looking forward to this once in a generation oppor- tunity to design, build, test and integrate what we believe will become one of the world’s most advanced submarine combat systems for decades to come.
So at the core of all that is the Australian industry and, being a company that’s been doing business for over 70 years and really a lot of boots on the
ground for the last 20 years, I can tell
of the design of the actual submarine itself. Naval Group are going to need all of that data and information from us as we select sensors, consoles and system equipment sizes and such, so that they can continue the detailed design and get to the point where they know what to put into equipment specifications to go out and purchase from industry as well.
We’re getting our work done and supporting their sched- ule on the construction of the submarine. We’re look to maximise the industrial participation as best we can and we want to make sure we have a capable high skilled submarine
you that this design of the Submarine Combat System today is being done down in Adelaide with an Australian workforce that’s 190 strong. We built that up from about three at the begin- ning of 2016.
We’ve been very successful in bring- ing in the talent we need, and upskill- ing as we need, to make sure that we’re getting the technical capability into sovereign hands to take this program on for years to come.
PROFILE
2019 Chief Executive Lockheed Martin Australia and NZ
2017 Vice President Operations Australia and NZ Rotary and
Mission Systems
2011 Vice President Littoral Combat Ship Program
2003 Program Director of Littoral Combat Ship Program
2000 Program Director of AEGIS, Washington Office
force, in this case, and an industry be- hind that’s capable of sustaining this program throughout.
We are contractually obliged and fully committed to maximising Aus- tralian Industry Content (AIC). Our work in the combat system does differ a little; as the CSI we are required to design and build that part of the sub- marine. It includes components built here, some bought here, as well as a portion of that will also come from the US as the requirements in the contract also require us to promote the ongoing interoperability with the US because we are such close allies.
ADM: Who are you working with at the moment in terms of the Austra- lian supply chain to bring those CSI tasks together?
By the end of the decade, we expect
our workforce in that area to grow to
about 250. But our industrial engage-
ment and our participation program
has a lot of maturity based on the
years we’ve been here and the num-
ber of programs that we work. One of
the things we do a really good job of
is going out to search for talent in adjacent technology in- dustries like mining and manufacturing and that helps us across all our programs.
We’ve been able to find companies that are able to sup- port us on our programs. We’ve been able to find companies that can be linked to and support other companies that we have hired to build the population of sovereign capability.
We have a responsibility in the submarine program to share that with our partners. As the combat system makes up a large part of the submarine, our design work is ahead
1986 Program Manager of AEGIS ship integration and test group
1982 Civil Engineer, US Navy 1982 Bachelor of Science:
Biomedical Engineering
NORTH: Well we have 36 different companies that we’re under contract with right now in Aus- tralia worth $32 million across them. Some are actually embedded with us doing the design work from including de- tail design of the architecture. We’re looked for innovation. So we have contracts with universities, academia, SMEs to help us grow that capability; that innovation that comes from Australia. We’re working with organisations like Aca-
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