BAE Systems has become the seventh major defence company to sign a Global Supply Chain Deed with the Department of Defence.
Signed by Defence Materiel Minister Jason Clare and new BAE Systems Australia CEO David Allott at Parliament House in Canberra today, the supply chain deed sees the company join Boeing, Raytheon, Thales, Eurocopter, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in Defence’s Global Supply Chain program.
“When the program was established everyone agreed that if it could provide a 10-fold return on the government’s investment it would be a roaring success. To date it has delivered more than a 30-fold return on investment with more than $356 million in contracts awarded to Australian industry,” Clare said in a statement.
“Australian SMEs have been the big winners, winning about 90 per cent of the value of these contracts,” he added.
BAE will now move forward with plans to sign an annex to its agreement with Defence, which gives companies access to government funding to hire a team of people to identify and certify Australian companies as part of their global supply chain. Boeing, Raytheon and Thales currently have such annexes in place.
