Feature
Issue No. 38 - December/January 07/08
Tenix sends rallying call to SMEs
Australian-grown defence giant, the Tenix Group has seen lots of action lately.
In October Tenix won a contract to deliver two new strategic lift ships to the Royal Australian Navy. And another watershed is coming as the firm has been put up for sale by its owners, the Salteri family.
Greg Hayes, the group MD and CEO, came to Adelaide in October to address a Defence Teaming Centre function - on the day the Air Warfare Destroyer contract was signed – about SME participation in the defence industry.
The Australian Defence Forces’ high operational tempo, Greg says, offers Australian industry substantial opportunities. New capabilities are needed and equipment needs more maintenance.
Tenix is known for shipbuilding - over the past 20 years, the firm has built more than 100 ships and exported around 60% of them - but it has a substantial presence in SA in other areas with 560 employees in SA in land warfare, aerospace and electronic systems development facilities, as well as the Electranet joint venture.
Greg sees defence contracting undergoing substantial change. “The future will be less about labour-centric work and more about product development,” he says.
Australian input to naval construction will be much less than the overseas component. Tenix built 10 Anzac frigates for the Australian and NZ navies, but will only assemble the superstructure for the new 27,000 tonne LHD ships, with the hulls built by Novantia in Spain.
The Federal Government mandated local content for the Anzacs, which led to 1400 companies in Australia and New Zealand supporting Tenix in the project. Tenix owned the IP, which made the through-life maintenance contract easier to win.
Greg says a lot of engineering excellence goes in to mating parts up exactly, but the ‘through-life support’ contract on any system is where the money is.
“That (adds up to) 50% to 90% of the total cost of naval equipment,” he says. ...
