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Inaugural winners - innovation to underpin Hunter frigates 

22 Dec 2020
Dematec
BAE Systems Australia’s shipbuilding business has selected four Australian companies to help fast track world leading manufacturing processes following the first ‘innovation challenge’ to support the Hunter Class Frigate Program.
BAE Systems Maritime Australia (formerly known as ASC Shipbuilding) is running progressive ‘innovation challenges’ as the Hunter Program ramps up so that the best Australian technologies will support and deliver efficiencies to the program.
 
The winning companies from the first challenge are:
Datanet (SA)
Lamson Concepts (NSW)
Cohda Wireless (SA) and
Dematec Automation (SA)
 
Over the course of the projects’ life-span, each of the selected Australian companies will showcase their logistics Track & Trace technologies at the Tonsley Innovation District in Adelaide.
 
Through Hunter, BAE Systems Maritime Australia will build nine of the world’s most potent submarine-hunting frigates at the state-of-the-art Osborne shipyard for the Royal Australian Navy.
 
At Tonsley, BAE Systems Maritime Australia has partnered with Flinders University to establish Line Zero – Pilot Factory of the Future, to collaborate with researchers, academics and technologists to test and trial advanced manufacturing technologies and techniques in a factory environment, before adapting them to the shipyard.
 
BAE Systems Maritime Australia Managing Director, Craig Lockhart, said:
 
“The immense size of the Hunter Class Frigate Program provides a great focus on the ships that will be manufactured at Osborne and not necessarily the smarts that will go into them.
 
“Through these Innovation Challenges we have the potential to revolutionise the way the ships are constructed from the ground up, significantly improving efficiency and productivity.
 
“It’s the development of local technologies for this program that will underpin the development of sovereign capabilities needed for an enduring Australian shipbuilding industry.”
 
Businesses are invited to lodge expressions of interest for the second Innovation Challenge – Digital Safety Technologies. Details are on the Industry Capability Network (ICN).