Memorandum from Thales UK
In this document Thales outlines its position
in the UK Land domain, and its contribution to the development
of the FRES Requirement and Acquisition Strategy and to the DIS
THALES UK
1. Thales is a key player in the land systems
domain, both globally and in the UK, acting as both a systems
integrator and a supplier of key technologies. The company has
taken the prime contractor role on many complex vehicle programmes.
Thales is committed to making a significant contribution to the
debate and to the delivery of the FRES capability.
2. Thales is the largest military vehicle
system integrator in Europe with experience on over 20,000 vehicles
worldwide. The most recent example is the provision of a fleet
wide electronic architecture to the new Piranha III Armoured Fight
Vehicle (AFV) fleet being procured by the Belgian Army.
3. In the UK Thales, through its Belfast
facility, is the prime contractor and system design authority
for the Self Propelled High Velocity Missile (SP HVM) Weapon System,
which integrates the Starstreak missile system with advanced sensors
and command and control on the Stormer platform. As system design
authority, Thales also delivered a major capability upgrade to
this system, successfully achieving the in service date in October
2006. Thales is concluding negotiations with MoD to provide the
SP HVM capability through-life.
4. Thales, through its Glasgow facility,
is the prime contractor for the Battle Group Thermal Imager (BGTI)
System, which was successfully delivered into service in 2005
and will be fielded on over 500 vehicles. Thales has total responsibility
for the sub-system and vehicle integration of BGTI across all
vehicle variants, sub-contracting the platform, design authority
to BAE Systems. BGTI integrates a stabilised gunners sight, commander's
crew station, three-axis inertial navigation system (INS), driver's
display and the BOWMAN/Combat battlefield management system (BMS).
The BGTI commander's panel is the hub for all data flow and provides
the commander with an intuitive man machine interface that enables
him to have access to optical, video, map and navigation data.
BGTI is also capable of planning routes and displaying target
location data independent of BOWMAN. The architecture includes
a combination of international open standard data transfer protocols
to utilise proven "off the shelf" technology whilst
optimising the interface to the BOWMAN system. Thales believes
that BGTI represents the most complex AFV electronic system in
service in the UK.
5. Thales has wide experience in the UK
and overseas of acting as an independent system and system-of-systems
integrator. Its roles in SP HVM, BGTI, CVF, Watchkeeper and Future
Integrated Soldier Technology (FIST) testify to its capability,
people and processes in this regard. In the land domain Thales
has run competitions for complex sighting and sensing systems
and has then successfully integrated these to deliver an AFV based
capability to UK MoD.
THALES FRES ACTIVITY
TO DATE
6. Through the FRES Integrated Project Team
(IPT) and the Directorate of Equipment Capability (Ground Manoeuvre)
Thales has contributed to the MoD's deliberations on acquisition
strategy by way of presentations, papers and strategic discussions.
Thales has developed programme, risk, supply chain management,
business and financial models to illustrate alternative ways of
working and to facilitate the identification of issues.
7. From other major programmes in which
Thales is involved such as CVF, Watchkeeper, FIST and others,
Thales also has much experience of alliancing, partnering and
working with other substantial organisations.
8. Thales has also been supporting the FRES
Systems House (SH), Atkins Defence, in the development of the
system requirement document (SRD) that will deliver the operational
requirement for FRES. Thales has been tasked by the SH to provide
inputs on specific topics such as power management, embedded training,
vehicle batteries, commonality and acquisition strategy. Thales
has also initiated direct discussion with the SH and informed
their development of the SRD.
9. Thales competed for and is leading the
two key FRES Technology Demonstrator Programmes (TDP), the Electronic
Architecture (EA) TDP and the Integrated Survivability (IS) TDP.
10. As part of the work on the EA TDP Thales
sees the development of an open, scalable electronic architecture
as key to ensuring the coherence of both the FRES fleet and legacy
platforms and to providing a mechanism for growth and technology
insertion. To meet these requirements Thales has brought in BAE
Systems, QinetiQ and a number of SMEs including Ncode, IFS Defence,
McLaren Electronic Systems, Eaton Aerospace, and Aerosystems International,
as well as the University of Sussex, to ensure that the best of
UK capability is harnessed and developed in a team environment
to deliver an optimised architecture.
11. Thales believes Integrated Survivability
to be a key enabler to delivering the FRES capability through
life. As part of the Integrated Survivability TDP Thales has identified
the major trade-offs that need to be made in terms of survivability
characteristics and has proposed a number of optimised survivability
concepts for FRES. Thales has contracted with The Boeing Company
to ensure the pull through of the survivability lessons learnt
in the US including those from the Future Combat Systems (FCS)
programme.
FRES ACQUISITION
STRATEGY
12. It is highly likely that FRES will consist
of platforms from more than one supplier. FRES fleet coherence,
commonality and hence value for money, are likely to be delivered
only through a systematic approach, focussed on the capability
required of the FRES fleet and individual variants, rather than
a vehicle-centric approach. A key enabler in delivering that coherence
is the effective management and control of the FRES system of
systems architecture and in particular the fleet level segments
of electronic architecture and integrated survivability. Thales
is therefore pleased to confirm its support for the acquisition
strategy outlined in the recent letter to its Chief Executive
and looks forward to playing a leading role in working with the
MoD to deliver the FRES capability effectively.
13. Thales looks forward to working with
MoD to define further and refine the acquisition process. A key
issue to be addressed by the acquisition strategy will be the
mechanisms by which broad fleet coherence will be achieved by
spiralling systems and technologies from the FRES programme into
the legacy fleet.
FRES AND DIS
14. The DIS clearly sets out MoD's intent
that FRES should be delivered through a team lead by a systems
integrator with the highest levels of systems engineering, skills,
resources and capabilities based in the UK. The DIS also highlights
the need for a system of systems perspective to manage the challenges
not just of the physical integration of complex sub-systems into
the various platforms but also the integration of these platforms
into the wider military network to fully exploit the benefits
of NEC. Thales has voiced its support for these objectives and
its desire to work with the MoD to ensure that they are fulfilled.
15. With respect to legacy AFV platforms,
Thales considers it important that the partnering agreement with
BAE Systems should not restrict competition, especially with respect
to major system integration activities. Thales believes that such
partnering agreements should not become rigid monopolies and that
they should be transparent to the supply chain. Thales considers
that systems such as BGTI provide good examples of where the MoD
has benefited from effective competition beyond the platform supplier.
CONCLUSION
16. Thales has a strong desire to be the
System of Systems Integrator for the FRES programme acting in
partnership with the MoD. Thales has all of the necessary resources
and capability in the UK to lead a UK based team harnessing the
best of UK and international companies for the benefit of the
programme.
24 November 2006
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