Lockheed Martin Australia recently announced it will invest $74 million to establish a National Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) Ecosystem in Australia.
The ‘National IAMD Ecosystem’ will position Australia for a key role in the IAMD global supply chain.
It will bring government, industry and academia together to create, enhance and maintain long-term capability for Australia. It will put the connectivity, infrastructure and process in place for organisations to gain access, bring technology and contribute for the next several decades.
Designed to be fully inclusive, it will support connectivity to stakeholder nodes across Australia that will allow low-cost access and opportunity regardless of location.
“In today’s strategic environment, IAMD is a critical capability and Australian industry is well-placed to be on the leading edge of global innovation and development. IAMD is a mission that spans all services and requires a high degree of integration to be effective,” said Warren McDonald, chief executive, Lockheed Martin Australia and New Zealand.
“It is bigger than any one project, and the Ecosystem is a mechanism that will provide the enduring aspect of Australian Industry Capability (AIC) that is so often elusive.”
The concept behind the Ecosystem is that accelerating workforce skilling and collaboration at a national level will create world-leading capabilities that generate Australian economic benefit, jobs and export opportunities.
This in turn will fuel additional workforce growth that keeps the cycle going. But to fully realise the benefit, the Ecosystem needs a catalyst, which is where Lockheed Martin Australia’s investment comes into play.
“As one of the leading IAMD companies in Australia, Lockheed Martin has a responsibility to uplift industry and help build the workforce of the future. We have more than 200 skilled IAMD professionals on staff today across a range of ADF projects,” McDonald addded.
“By fostering closer collaboration across industry, academia and government we can create a force multiplying effect by bringing the brightest minds from across the nation to bolster national security through sovereign self-sufficiency.
“In the process it will solidify Australia’s role as a competitive provider of key capabilities that coalition partners will need going forward.”
The Ecosystem will include a combination of infrastructure and collaboration tools that bring operators and engineers together to solve problems and field capability faster.
The secure digital environment will unlock powerful decision advantages via advanced tools that optimise tactics, investments and trade-offs in a setting where the ADF can ‘try before it buys’ new capabilities.
Lockheed Martin Australia’s investment will focus in two primary areas: a National IAMD Centre that will serve as a physical hub of the Ecosystem, and a research and development pipeline that will facilitate sovereign innovation through SMEs and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) activities.
The Ecosystem will support real-time feedback from warfighters, allowing Australian industry to engineer solutions for Defence that will deter and defeat current and emerging threats.
“By enhancing integration and interoperability across all warfighting domains, the IAMD Ecosystem will improve situational awareness and support rapid decision making on missions throughout the Indo-Pacific region,” said Kendell Kuczma, International Business Development Director of Rotary and Missions Systems for Australia and New Zealand.
The announcement was made in parallel with the delivery of Lockheed Martin Australia’s AIR6500 Joint Air Battle Management System (JABMS) proposal to the Australian Defence Force.
Over the past seven years, Lockheed Martin Australia has been committed to supporting Defence’s vision to transform into a next-gen enabled force through AIR6500.
In 2021, Lockheed Martin Australia was one of two companies down-selected for consideration as the Strategic Partner to lead the stewardship of this capability with the Commonwealth and industry.