US launches artificial intelligence military use initiative

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  1 mai 2019 | International, Naval

  VT Halter Marine Nabs $1.9 Billion Contract To Build Polar Security Cutters

  The Coast Guard and Navy on Tuesday awarded VT Halter Marine a potential $1.9 billion contract to begin detailed design and eventually construction on up to three Polar Security Cutters (PSCs) for the Coast Guard, the first new heavy polar icebreakers for the service... https://www.defensedaily.com/vt-halter-marine-nabs-1-9-billion-contract-build-polar-security-cutters/homeland-security/

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  29 avril 2020 | International, Naval

  Navy Acquisition Boosts Ship Contract Awards Under COVID-19

  “I think there are ways we can come out of this much more resilient, but you know it's hard to change bureaucracy and institutional ways of doing business [to] make sure that this disruption doesn't go to waste,” says Navy acquisition chief James Geurts. By PAUL MCLEARY WASHINGTON: Navy leaders and defense industry execs are worried about the effect the COVID-19 pandemic is having on their supply chains, potentially interrupting critical repair and refit availabilities that could have knock-on effects on deployment schedules. The Navy's acquisition chief James Geurts told reporters recently that so far, industry is “holding pretty good on near-term milestones,” but he's worried about long-term effects on ship repair and the industry's ability to keep pace. However, the pandemic seems to be having some beneficial effects. “Part of my goal for our team is not to recover necessarily to where we were,” before COVID-19, but to change some fundamentals of how the Navy's business gets done, he said. With most of the Navy acquisition force teleworking, “we're basically 32 percent ahead on contract awards,” of where they planned to be at this point in the year. “And so, that means there are processes that are working much more efficiently now than they were before, so I want to capture those,” he said. The Navy and shipbuilders are trying to do the same thing in the shipyards where “maybe different techniques will allow us to gain some efficiency while also creating some resiliency,” that will help weather any future disruptions and setbacks. The big shipbuilders like Huntington Ingalls and Bath Iron Works are staggering shifts and allowing liberal leave and teleworking without suffering much disruption so far, company officials have said. Geurts said the lessons they're learning could lead to the conclusion that, “we cannot operate the way we used to operate, which had a lot of fragility and brittleness as we're seeing right now. It's got to drive to the way we need to operate in the future, which has to have resiliency for whatever disruption that might come up. That's what we're really trying to watch closely and think two or three phases ahead, and not just get caught up in managing today's crisis.” Even before COVID-19 tore through the global economy, the Navy was looking at ways to save money on repairing ships. Last month the service backtracked on plans for a classwide service-life extension project for its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that would have added a decade to their 35-year service lives. Not keeping the Burkes longer, and saving on their life-extension upgrades, would free up money for the Navy to buy more unmanned systems and other smaller ships to fit into plans Defense Secretary Mark Esper is making with Navy leadership for a smaller, faster, more stealthy fleet. To that end, the service has been working on changing how it awards ship maintenance contracts, and is working to “bundle” multiple ship repair contracts together to give industry a more predictable work schedule, allowing them to plan long-term. “Ultimately, getting them bundles is the key to us being successful delivering these [ships] on time,” the commander of Naval Sea Systems Vice Adm. Thomas Moore said last month at the annual McAleese and Associates Defense Programs Conference. Awarding several ship contracts at once will allow the shipbuilder to stockpile parts and arrange work schedules in a more efficient and rational manner, as opposed to the one-off, last-minute contracts the Navy has traditionally awarded for ship repair. “Industry is rational. That's what I tell everybody — you may not like every decision they make, but the decisions most always are very, very rational,” Moore said. In the end, “we've got to manage our way through delay and disruption, but really focus on steepening the recovery and reinvention phase to get into the place we need to be,” Geurts said. “I think there are ways we can come out of this much more resilient, but you know it's hard to change bureaucracy and institutional ways of doing business [to] make sure that this disruption doesn't go to waste.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/navy-acquisition-boosts-ship-contract-awards-under-covid-19

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  21 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  CEO Q&A: L3’s Chris Kubasik and Harris’s Bill Brown

  BY MARCUS WEISGERBER Soon after the companies announced plans to form the world's 7th-largest defense firm, the CEOs rang up for a joint interview. On Sunday, just after L3 Technologies and Harris Corp. announced their planned merger next year, I chatted with CEOs Chris Kubasik and Bill Brown about their plans to form L3 Harris Technologies, which would be the world's 7th-largest defense firm. Here are some excerpts. Q. How did this come together? Brown: Chris and I have known each other for a number of years here, and a lot of it started more socially, not from a business perspective. We work in the same space as complimentary businesses, complementary portfolios. Same [main] customer. You know we realized, given where we stack up in the defence hierarchy, this would be a great potential combination. We've been discussing it through the balance of this calendar year. [It] really picked up steam in the summer and were able to bring it forward here towards middle October. Q. Why a merger rather than an acquisition by one partner? Kubasik: Both companies are quite strong, and we're both on an upswing, and we looked at all the different stakeholders from the customers, the shareholders and the employees. And in our relative size and market value, a merger vehicle seems to be the absolute right way to go here. True partnership, as you've probably seen. 50/50 board. Bill and I have our leadership laid out clearly. It's absolutely the right way to do this. We're quite proud that we're able to pull it off. And I think it's the best way to serve all the stakeholders. Q. Bill is going to be CEO until a transition to Chris in a couple of years. How will that work? And what happens to L3's New York office if the headquarters moves to Florida? Brown: The combination in bringing these two great companies together is going to take a lot of work. So Chris and I will partner on this, in leading the company [and] clearly doing a lot of the integration. We're going to chair the integration committee together. I'll have responsibility for the enterprise functions, and Chris will keep an eye on the ball in what we do operationally in the business segments making sure that through to the integration we don't miss a beat in our growth agenda, meeting expectations of customers, delivering on programs. It's going to be a shared partnership in bringing the companies together. Kubasik: On a combined basis, we have several thousand employees in the state of New York, a lot in Rochester, of course Long Island and the surrounding areas. We got to do to what we believe is best for the business. When you look at the Space Coast of Florida, the 7,000 or so employees and infrastructure in the Melbourne area, it's an easy decision. We'll be transitioning from the headquarters from New York and taking the best of the best and moving to Florida. At some point the Manhattan office will either be significantly scaled down or ultimately closed. Q. Will the combined company divest or combine overlapping sectors? Bill Brown: Very high and complimentary portfolios. So we see very, very, very little overlap. Q. L3 has been on an acquisition spree in recent years. Should we expect more, perhaps in the maritime sphere? Kubasik: Job one is going to be the integration for the first couple years, so there will be very, very few, if any, acquisitions the first couple of years. They would have to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We're going to focus first and foremost on integrating this company. Once we get this integrated, which is a three-year program, we'll update and modify the strategy as appropriate. Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the proposed merged company's rank by revenue among global defense firms. This Q&A is part of the weekly Global Business Brief newsletter by Marcus Weisgerber. Find the rest of this week's issue here,and subscribe to get it in your inbox, here. https://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/10/q-ceos-chris-kubasik-and-bill-brown-l3-technologies-and-harris-corps/152135