31 janvier 2019 | International, Naval
By: Ben Werner
General Dynamics Corp. plans to invest $1 billion in 2019 in upgrading and retooling its manufacturing operations company-wide, with a focus on its growing submarine construction business.
A plurality of this year's capital expenditures – the reinvestment in manufacturing operations, commonly referred to as CapEx – will focus on making improvements to General Dynamics Electric Boat, the maker of the Virginia-class attack submarines and the new Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines.
“We are poised to support our Navy customers and increase the size of the fleet,” Phebe Novakovic, the chief executive of General Dynamics, said during a conference call with analysts today to discuss the company's 2018 financial results and detail financial expectations for 2019.
Submarine builder Electric Boat is on pace to build two Virginia-class Block IV submarines a year while preparing to start building the first Block V submarines. At the same time, Electric Boat is preparing for construction of the first Columbia-class submarine to begin in early 2020.
“CapEx will be 3 percent of sales in 2019 mostly because of the Columbia-class construction,” Jason Aiken, the chief financial officer of General Dynamics, said during the call.
In 2018, General Dynamics reported sales of $36.2 billion, and the company predicts sales to increase in 2019.
General Dynamics capital investments will remain at a similar level for the next two to three years, Aiken said. After 2022, once Columbia-production is ramped up, the level of capital spending is expected to taper off, he added.
Overall, the company's Marine Systems division, which includes the Electric Boat, Bath Iron Works and NASSCO shipyards, recorded robust sales growth during the year, and Novakovic said the sales growth is expected to continue in 2019. The Pentagon and Capitol Hill are sending signals that Novakovic said she takes to mean, “we'll see nice defense spending for our programs.”
General Dynamics predicts the Marine Systems division will post 2019 sales of $9 billion, a 6-percent increase over sales in 2018.
The Marine Systems group has a backlog of 11 Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers; started construction on the future USNS John Lewis (T-AO-205), a first-in-class oiler for the Navy; and continued building Expeditionary Sea Base ships.
“They have done nicely with slow, steady growth, but the real growth driver is Electric Boat,” Novakovic said.
22 novembre 2023 | International, Sécurité
North Korea said on Thursday it would deploy stronger armed forces and new weapons on its border with the South, a day after Seoul suspended part of a 2018 military accord between the two Koreas in a protest over Pyongyang's launch of a spy satellite.
12 novembre 2021 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
The Pentagon's cyber policy shop wants US industry to help allies and partners strengthen cybersecurity.
22 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department will not clear the F-35 fighter jet for full-rate production this year, and it may even have to push that milestone as far as January 2021, the Pentagon's acquisition executive said Friday. The Pentagon had intended to make a full-rate production decision — also known as Milestone C — by the end of 2019. But because the Joint Simulation Environment continues to face delays in its own development, the Defense Department will have to defer that milestone by as many as 13 months, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord told reporters during a news conference. The Joint Simulation Environment, or JSE, is needed to conduct simulated evaluations of the F-35 in a range of high-threat scenarios. “We actually had signed out of the JPO [F-35 Joint Program Office] earlier this week a program deviation report that documented expected schedule threshold breach in the Milestone C full-rate production decision of up to 13 months,” Lord said. It is unclear whether the delay will cause an increase in program costs. Although the Defense Department already buys the F-35 in large numbers, the full-rate production decision is viewed as a major show of confidence in the program's maturity. During this time, the yearly production rate is set to skyrocket from the 91 jets manufactured by Lockheed Martin in 2018 to upward of 160 by 2023. But before Lord signs off on the production decision, the F-35 must complete operational testing, the results of which will be validated by Robert Behler, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation. The F-35's testing community intended to complete initial operational test and evaluation, or IOT&E, by this summer; however, the JSE is not yet complete. “We are not making as quick progress on the Joint Simulation Environment, integrating the F-35 into it. It is a critical portion of IOT&E. We work closely with Dr. Behler and DOT&E [[the office of the director of operational test and evaluation]. They are making excellent progress out on the range with the F-35, but we need to do the work in the Joint Simulation Environment,” Lord said. “We have collectively decided that we need the JSE [to be] absolutely correct before we proceed, so I will make some decisions about when that full-rate production decision will be made shortly," she added. Specifically, the Defense Department and F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin are lagging behind in integrating the "'F-35 In-A-Box” — the simulated model of the F-35 and its sensors and weapons — into the JSE, reported Military.com, which broke the news of the testing delay in September. Even before IO&TE formally started, the F-35 test community had noted the challenge of maintaining the planned schedule. The F-35 began operational tests in December 2018, three months after the originally scheduled start date in September. The program office maintained that its goal was to see the test phase finished by the summer of 2019. However, F-35 test director Air Force Col. Varun Puri documented concerns in a September 2018 presentation that the test phase could slip until September 2019, which could add budget pressure to the program. In a statement, Lockheed Martin expressed confidence in its ability to ramp up production over the next few years. “As Secretary Lord stated earlier today, the F-35 is performing exceptionally well for our customers and we continue to ramp up production, modernize the aircraft and improve sustainment performance,” the company said. “This year our goal is to deliver 131 aircraft and that is on track to grow to over 140 production aircraft deliveries next year. We are confident the full F-35 enterprise is prepared for full rate production and ready to meet growing customer demand.” https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/10/18/the-f-35-may-hit-full-rate-production-more-than-a-year-late/