Facing a downturn in development activities with the pending introduction to service of the Airborne Stand-off Radar system and the Paveway IV precision-guided bomb, the UK's Raytheon Systems (RSL) is pursuing organic growth and full involvement in the nation's formative Team Complex Weapons industry consortium, says managing director and president Brian McKeon.
Speaking during his first press interview since taking control of Raytheon's UK activities from Jack Cronin last June, McKeon says RSL is now comfortable with the protectionist message of the Defence Industrial Strategy white paper published in December 2005. This sought to safeguard UK expertise in areas such as the development, manufacture and support of air-launched weapons, and warned that the Ministry of Defence's need to obtain full access to mission critical software could preclude it from making future purchases with offshore suppliers.
"Some folks were wondering whether we understood the key principles of DIS and the Defence Technology Strategy, but we do, and we fully support it," says McKeon. With RSL able to trace its UK heritage back to before 1908 and with around 1,330 employees, McKeon is keen to underline its credentials as a national entity. "We are a long-standing UK company, and our core products and technology lie here," he says.
|
|---|
McKeon: "Complex weapons are a key part of our portfolio" |
"People often look at Raytheon as a US company and [believe] that we're just trying to sell US technology in the UK. Certainly we do that, but we fully understand the key principles of sovereignty. Where we have looked to bring technology to the UK we have built in the transfer of that technology." Recent examples include both ASTOR and the Paveway IV, he says, with the intellectual property rights for both products to reside inside the UK.
While he is a US citizen, McKeon is by no means a newcomer to European industry. Previously involved with RSL during its successful pursuit of the British Army's Joint Effects Tactical Targeting System, he also remains a non-executive chairman of air defence joint venture ThalesRaytheonSystems.
RSL's role as an air-launched weapons supplier is one of the central planks of the company's business strategy in the UK, says McKeon. "Complex weapons are a key part of our portfolio here, and we want to be able to continue to work that." The success of this goal will be determined within the next few months, with the company striving for inclusion in Team CW, originally expected to sign a strategic partnering agreement with the MoD late last year. The partnership is intended to bring stability to a sector that will experience a 40% decline in funding by the end of the decade a factor of concern to RSL and Raytheon, which currently deliver 11% of the UK's tri-service complex weapon systems.
Announced during last year's Farnborough air show, MBDA-led Team CW was initially outlined as including Qinetiq, Roxel and Thales (Flight International, 25-31 July 2006). McKeon says Raytheon was unable to commit to involvement at the time, and notes: "We are technically still outside Team Complex Weapons, but it's not where we want to be." Industry sources say a draft agreement including RSL is in existence and the subject of legal processes that will take several months to complete.
Involvement in Team CW is likely to be critical to RSL over the long term, as the MoD advances projects for the Royal Air Force's Selected Precision Effects At Range guided bomb, lower yield strike weapons and eventually directed energy weapons. "If you had the right capability you could participate through the supply base," McKeon says, but warns: "If we couldn't see a way through the procurement it might hurt our ability to compete."
RSL's relationship with the MoD has been tested by delays to the £800 million ($1.6 billion) ASTOR system, at the heart of which are five Sentinel R1 aircraft - a modified Bombardier Global Express - and eight ground stations. While seven of the latter have now been delivered to 5 Sqn at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, just one Sentinel is at the base to support training activities, despite a 31 March deadline to have three aircraft available (Flight International, 6-12 February).
"We had a large number of milestones to meet [on ASTOR] last year, and we made great progress," says McKeon, while conceding: "It is a big, complex programme." Release-to-service activities are under way and a delayed operational assessment is planned for later this year, when the system could also achieve its in-service date.
RSL is now planning a move away from its crowded Park Lane headquarters to larger premises in west London, which McKeon says will enable the company to establish a new laboratory to showcase its systems integration expertise. It is also part of the Metrix team named as preferred bidder to deliver the MoD's 25-year Defence Training Review rationalisation programme, and the company also lists winning the Royal Navy's stalled Maritime Afloat Reach and Sustainability logistics project and an e-borders homeland security project with the UK government as critical pursuits.
"Our goal is to continue to hold or grow the core and use these other pursuits to really fuel an accelerated growth," McKeon says. "We're committed to the UK. It's a key market."
Source: Flight International
