26 نوفمبر 2024

Shaping the future of defence procurement

Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment Battlegroup fire live rounds with their 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery (7 RHA) 105mm Light Gun during Ex Askari Storm Kenya. A planned exercise in the British Army’s Nanyuki Training area in Kenya, with troops from 16 Air Assault Brigade, involved practising moving 400 people away from a danger zone. *Some personel have had faces blurred to make them unidentifiable* During Exercise Askari Storm, troops rehearsed the vital skills needed to move endangered people out of the way of disease, a natural disaster or conflict. Throughout the exercise the 16 Air Assault Brigade units also integrated with the Kenyan Defence Force to conduct joint missions, to help bring UK allied integration with Kenya.

We have successfully delivered the first package of work for Project TAMPA to the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). Project TAMPA is the MOD’s accelerator programme focused on progressing the use of additive manufacturing to increase material availability across defence and overcoming obsolescence of parts, reducing cost and improving performance and availability to enhance defence capabilities and critical assets.

The MOD awarded the Project TAMPA contract in April 2023 to us, along with NP Aerospace, RBSL, Thales and AMFG and the focus has been to explore if additive manufacturing can help transform material availability across defence operations.

Our team has been working across multiple domains to deliver solutions for complex parts across a variety of platforms. The project included complex components for the L118 Light Gun, 4.5 inch gun on the Type 23 frigate, and the torpedo launch system for both the Astute and Dreadnought class submarines.

The Light Gun eye shaft has been recommended for adoption into the defence inventory by MOD’s Defence Equipment & Support team and is ready to be ordered through our Material Availability Service.

Kate Robinson, Managing Director Through Life Equipment Support, said: “Delivering the first package of work for Project Tampa is a significant milestone for our customer, and by reaching this we can now move in the right direction to increase material availability across the sector.

“Working in a strategic and collaborative manner with key stakeholders has enabled us to explore the challenges and opportunities together to deliver the right solutions. We are now engaged in delivering the next work package, we realise now more than ever what we do matters and we are committed to supporting the UK MOD with the continued programme.” 

Charlotte Robinson, UK Strategic Command Defence Support Innovation Team Leader said: “It’s been great to see the progress made by the Babcock team on Project TAMPA’s first spiral of work. Through collaboration with the other Project TAMPA suppliers and DE&S Delivery Teams, Babcock has demonstrated that Additive Manufacturing can play a key role in improving Defence part availability.”