Search Results for: "United+Industrial"
Military To Tighten Vendor Cybersecurity Policies
Relevance Score: 2.491 2010-03-02 21:26:33
The Department of Defense has signaled its intention to develop new policies requiring its vendors to meet increased standards for cybersecurity for unclassified military information residing on or being carried over private sector systems and networks. In a memo issued in late January, Department of Defense chief information officer Cheryl Roby laid out a number of leadership responsibilities and strategic guidance on the development of stronger cybersecurity plans. The Sprint to Business Continuity "It is DoD policy to establish a comprehensive approach for protecting unclassified DoD information transiting or residing on unclassified [Defense industrial base] systems and networks and create a timely, coordinated, and effective partnership with the [Defense industrial base]," Roby informed. Hackers have increasingly been targeting and probing the Defense industrial base, sometimes successfully. For example, last year, it was revealed that hackers infiltrated the networks of government contractors and stole sensitive specs on the Pentagon's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project. This poses a significant challenge, as a wide variety of military information resides on external systems, and a wide variety of defense IT work is outsourced. The Department of Defense has in recent years been increasing the amount of work it does to secure its cyber supply chain, including taking such extreme measures as procuring chips for sensitive systems only from a limited number of "trusted foundries" in the United States. This effort may put a bit more DoD-wide rigor into similar exercises. The memo lays out a number of responsibilities for top staff. For example, the DoD CIO will chair a Defense industrial board cybersecurity executive committee and coordinate oversight of industry cybersecurity activities with the DoD's inspector general. The directors of the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency will provide support and cyber intrusion damage assessment analysis in the case of attack. Other roles include the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, who's tasked with developing and injecting new cybersecurity policies into DoD's acquisition processes; the DoD's CFO, who will be necessary to monitor budgets related to these activities to make sure they're adequately resourced; and the director of the DoD's Cyber Crime Center, who will "serve as the focal point for threat information sharing."
Egypt to produce first fighter, drone plane: MENA
Relevance Score: 2.158 2010-02-24 13:39:01
Egypt is set to manufacture its first fighter and drone "in cooperation with a foreign side", official MENA news agency reported on Saturday, according to Xinhua. "Talks and negotiations are underway about a project to produce Egypt's first fighter and drone plane," MENA quoted Lt. General Hamdy Waheba, Chairman of Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI), Egypt's state-owned company specialized in producing civilian goods as well as military products. The official did not name the foreign party which will take a hand at the process. "Local production of the aircraft will meet the demand of the Egyptian Armed Forces, as it will be sold at a very competitive price," Waheba informed. The AOI was established in 1975 with the aim of building an advanced technology industrial base. Egypt is one the major Arab countries dependent on importing military fighters from the United States and Russia.
Aeroflex Gaisler Announces the Next Generation Leon Processor
Relevance Score: 2.076 2010-01-27 11:23:03
Aeroflex Gaisler AB, a leader in System on Chip (SoC) design, today announced the next generation LEON processor - the LEON4, providing the industry a high performing, licensable 32-bit processor core based on the SPARC V8 architecture. The LEON4 complements the widely used LEON3 processor for high-performance embedded applications across a broad spectrum of demanding consumer and industrial applications. The LEON4 is a high-performance 32-bit SPARC V8 processor that provides computing capabilities to cost-sensitive embedded microcontroller applications at significantly lower cost than other competing solutions. The processor is available as a soft core together with a rich IP library (GRLIB) for instantiations into both FPGAs and ASICs. The LEON4 processor is targeted at high-end industrial and consumer electronics applications and supports symmetric and asymmetric multiprocessing.
The 29 Million Electric Vehicles Sold In 2010 Will Rise 69% to 49 Million in 2020 but the Value of the Market Will Grow By Far More
Relevance Score: 2.058 2010-01-27 11:12:08
The burgeoning electric vehicle EV industry cannot be understood by simply looking at cars. The complete market value is, and will remain, about double the market for cars. The leaders such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan make electric vehicles for many applicational sectors. Indeed, many of them also control the manufacture of the component that most affects price and performance - the battery. For example, Nissan has a major program to put next generation lithium batteries from its battery joint venture into its forklifts as well as its cars. Toyota makes heavy and light industrial EVs from forklifts to buses and mobility for the disabled, not just electric cars, and the knowledge in these different divisions is shared between them all. Much is written about hybrid cars but there are substantial sales of hybrid military trucks, buses and even motorcycles now. New report IDTechEx has therefore launched a new report on the whole subject called "Electric Vehicles 2010-2020". It is based on ten years of researching the subject, intensive desk research, visits and interviews. There are chapters on Heavy Industrial, Light Industrial and Commercial, Mobility for the Disabled, Two Wheelers, Golf Cars, Cars, Military, Marine and Other vehicles. That even extends to electric mobile robots, surveillance jellyfish and other Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), bats and electric aircraft. Detailed forecasts for these vehicle categories by numbers and value and the key components are provided for 2010-2020. The trends, technology and planned vehicles are clarified in 185 figures and 58 tables including the historical context. Winning and losing strategies are evaluated. Timelines are given of events to come. At last the full picture of China IDTechEx does not make the common mistake of reporting primarily on vehicles from the well known Western and Japanese manufacturers. 66% of the manufacturers of electric vehicles in the world are in China. Over 90% of the world's electric vehicles are made in China, mainly for use in China. It has the largest potential market for electric vehicles. It mines and controls 95% of the World's rare earth reserves used in the hybrid car batteries, motors and other key components of today's electric vehicles. Of the 420 EV manufacturers covered in this new report, an appropriately high proportion are Chinese. This is particularly true of the chapters on Heavy Industrial, Light Industrial and Commercial, Mobility for the Disabled, Two Wheelers, Golf Cars and Cars, where the Chinese heavily participate, as yet little publicity, because so much of it is for the domestic market.
CalAmp Agrees to Lease Private 900 MHz Radio Spectrum From Space Data
Relevance Score: 2.013 2010-03-10 22:37:59
CalAmp Corp. (NASDAQ: CAMP), a leading provider of wireless products, services and solutions, has entered into an agreement with Space Data Radio, LLC to lease a 100 KHz portion of licensed 900 MHz radio frequency spectrum across the entire United States, subject to execution of a definitive agreement and FCC filings. The agreement gives CalAmp access to nationwide private spectrum in the 901.9-902 MHz band for bundling with wireless communication systems designed for applications in utility, public safety, oil and gas, and other markets. This 100 KHz of spectrum is directly adjacent to the 902 to 928 MHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency band and is well suited for applications such as SmartGrid. CalAmp plans to combine the spectrum with its licensed narrowband IP products such as Viper, as well as a hybrid version of its Sentry 4G-900 WiMAX-based broadband platform.
Military-Industrial Complex
Relevance Score: 1.929 2010-03-08 22:37:03
Every four years or so the Defense Department conducts its Quadrennial Defense Review. The Obama Administration submitted the results of their first review along with the latest federal budget during the first week of the month. The review is a Congressional-directed examination of the U.S. strategy and force structure. One of the main results of this review is for the Executive Branch to try and prioritize which programs will be developed and acquired. The Executive Branch’s decisions are critical intel to defense contractors as the decisions influence which of their products will be developed and bought. The 2011 QDR Report did include one major change for the U.S. Department of Defense. The force structure will now no longer plan on fighting two major conflicts simultaneously. That had been a requirement of the U.S. military since the 1980s. That decision alone will drive many procurement decisions, because it is likely to shrink the Air Force and Navy. The QDR report has a chapter on the acquisition system and industrial base concerns. The report states that “the federal government as a whole and the Pentagon in particular have not adequately addressed the changes both within the industry and in the Department’s needs in the current strategic environment.” The Obama Administration wants greater engagement between the industry, Congress and itself to ensure development of necessary systems. One goal is to ensure that “rapid evolution of commercial technology” will be fitted into defense systems and plans. Of course, none of this is new. For the last sixty years the Government has been hoping to integrate new technologies developed in the private sector for military use. In many cases the military services have successfully done this. The military has been able to take advantage of the increases in processing power, for example, as the few CPU chips developed specifically for defense use have been quickly outpaced by Intel (INTC) and others. One hindrance to the rapid government integration of private-sector advances is that the runway for weapon development is so long that the commercial technology available at the end is much better then what was available at the start of the program. Another factor that has slowed the development of new military technology is the withering of the U.S. industrial base since 1991 due to a fall-off in demand. When the Defense Department needs a lot less product there will be a lot less capability to deliver it. The situation with the new KC-X aerial tanker is a case in point. When there are only two corporations in the world — Boeing (BA) and Airbus, EADS (EADS:P) subsidiary — that can meet the military’s needs, there is little or no competition. One thing that the QDR does address is the realization that the industrial base is no longer made up of big corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Northrop Grumman (NOC). These companies now rely on several thousand second-tier suppliers to deliver key components in small quantities to produce large, complex weapon systems. A good example is II-VI Inc (IIVI). This advanced optics and semiconductor producer just won a contract from Lockheed worth $40 million to provide sapphire windows for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) targeting system. II-VI has been making small lots to support the development and testing aircraft but now must plan to ramp up its production to support Lockheed’s increased deliveries of the F-35. The JSF program will benefit many different companies across the world like Alcoa Aluminum (AA) who delivers fuselage assemblies. Since the company had net earnings of $6 million last quarter this contract represents a significant level of work for it. IIVI’s component may be small in scale but it is crucial for the aircraft. Lockheed has tens of these contracts; without them, the aircraft would not be manufactured on time and with the correct capability. In the 1990s, due to the decline in the defense budget, many of these second-tier suppliers stopped producing defense products or went out of business. There was no demand. The QDR describes a policy that will somehow keep the industrial base in the United States capable of providing this support. That policy may demand increased quantities of products at certain times despite the need for them or direct investment in key technology production. Without these suppliers the modern weapon systems the U.S. wants would not be developed or built. Export control laws limit what technology may be moved to offshore production and the U.S. defense production could become open to boycotts by these foreign suppliers over U.S. policy. The QDR report recognizes that the industrial base must be protected and developed. This has to be done within the demands for competition, cost and international trade agreements. Relying on U.S. suppliers only will increase cost as there is less competition, higher labor rates and more regulation. Refusing to buy from foreign producers may lead to World Trade Organization (WTO) violations and counter tariffs and boycotts. Rebuilding the base to what it was prior to the 1990s will take a great deal of money and changes in the whole defense acquisition system.
Pratt & Whitney Canada Celebrates 500th Engine Delivery to Blackhawk Modifications Inc.
Relevance Score: 1.852 2010-02-05 18:18:12
Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) recently celebrated the delivery of its 500th PT6A turboprop engine to Blackhawk Modifications Inc. of Waco, Texas, a major player in the growing aircraft modifications market. P&WC is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX) company. P&WC held a special ceremony at its engine production facility in Longueuil to honour Blackhawk and its 250th engine conversion consumers, Dan Rogers, owner of Franklin, N.C.-based DuoTech Services, a company offering engineering laboratory, depot repair facility, and other technical services to military and civilian agencies. Blackhawk recently installed two new PT6A-135A engines on Rogers' Cheyenne II aircraft through the Blackhawk XP135A upgrade, offering better performance and efficiency and enhancing resale value. Blackhawk, founded in 1999, specializes in replacing engines on five aircraft models with factory-new PT6A engines, including Raytheon King Air 90, Cessna 425 Conquest and Cheyenne turboprop aircraft. "We are very impressed with Blackhawk's growth over the past 10 years and want to congratulate them on their success," informed Michael Perodeau, Vice President, Corporate Aviation & Military Programs, P&WC. "They have grown their conversion business by offering operators of flying aircraft an option to improve the aircraft performance through more powerful PT6A turboprop engines." Aircraft modifications are growing in popularity. Operators benefit from more power, faster climb and higher cruise speed, with minimal changes to the aircraft. Pratt & Whitney Canada, based in Longueuil, Quebec, is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines powering business, general aviation and regional aircraft and helicopters. The company also produces auxiliary power units and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., USA, is a diversified company delivering high technology products and services to the global aerospace and building industries.
LockMart Receives Contract For Third Lot Of F-35s
Relevance Score: 1.848 2009-06-15 16:37:54
The United States Department of Defense has awarded Lockheed Martin a $2.1 billion contract modification to produce 17 F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters in the third lot of low-rate initial production (LRIP). The buy also includes the first international orders - two F-35 operational test aircraft for the United Kingdom and one for the Netherlands. The contract adds to a May 2008 award of $197 million to fund LRIP 3 long-lead materials, and to a March 2009 contract modification award of $320 million for tooling and test equipment, also beginning in LRIP 3. Assembly of 14 aircraft in the first two LRIP lots is already under way, with initial F-35 deliveries to the U.S. Air Force scheduled to begin in 2010. Eight development aircraft have entered testing, and the remaining 11 are planned to roll out by year's end. "As we move more deeply into F-35 production, we are seeing the steady increases in quality and efficiency that track to our target production rate of one aircraft per working day in the 2015 time frame," said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35 program general manager. In March and April, Lockheed Martin received additional contracts totaling $306 million to prepare for the production of 32 additional F-35 Lightning II fighters in LRIP 4. The U.S. and eight nations partnering in the project plan to acquire 3,173 F-35 fighters. The F-35 is maturing and retiring technical risk rapidly, with 70 percent of system software complete and on schedule, early production processes delivering aircraft with quality levels that surpass those of mature fighter programs, and flight-test aircraft that have recorded zero technical discrepancies in more than 80 percent of their missions. The F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, 5th generation stealth fighter. Three F-35 variants derived from a common design, developed together and using the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide, will replace at least 13 types of aircraft for nine nations initially, making the Lightning II the most cost-effective fighter program in history. Lockheed Martin is developing the F-35 with its principal industrial partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Two separate, interchangeable F-35 engines are under development: the Pratt and Whitney F135 and the GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team F136.
United Technologies 1Q Profit Increased By Cost Cuts
Relevance Score: 1.798 2010-04-29 15:16:07
United Technologies Corp. informed its first quarter profit jumped 20 percent, the first increase in a year as the industrial conglomerate cited its efforts to cut costs and boost productivity. Its shares climbed to a 52-week high. The parent company of jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, Otis elevators and Sikorsky Aircraft raised the lower end of its 2010 profit guidance to $4.50 per share from $4.40 per share. "Continued focus on cost reduction and productivity, as well as savings from restructuring actions, led to margin expansion across each of our businesses," CEO Louis Chenevert informed in a statement. United Technologies is also benefiting from rising orders, particularly in emerging markets, he said. As a result, Chenevert said he expects business growth will resume in the second half of the year. Its shares rose $1.40, or 1.9 percent, to $75.60 in morning trading after rising to their highest level in the past year at $75.73 earlier in the session. The Hartford company earned $866 million, or 93 cents per share, in the January-March period, up from $722 million, or 78 cents per share, a year ago. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 90 cents per share. Revenue slipped to $12.1 billion from $12.25 billion a year ago. Analysts expected revenue of $12.26 billion. United Technologies expects earnings per share this year in the range of $4.50 to $4.65, which includes $350 million in expected restructuring charges and one-time gains of $100 million. Analysts expected earnings of $4.63 a share but generally exclude one-time items. Restructuring costs last year were $800 million, which included the elimination of 14,000 jobs. Profit rose at each of United Technologies' businesses, led by Carrier heating and ventilating. Orders for Carrier's transport refrigeration and air conditioning business Transicold rose 37 percent in the quarter, while orders for commercial heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment fell 4 percent, reflecting weakness in commercial real estate markets. Improvements in Carrier reflect restructuring and cost reduction in addition to benefits of a "relatively easy" comparison with a tough first quarter of 2009, Chief Financial Officer Greg Hayes told investor analysts on a conference call. "Obviously, the order rates are up wonderfully at Transicold and probably a little bit stronger than we had anticipated," he stated. Truck trailer equipment orders in North America and Europe are up more than 80 percent from a very low base, he informed. Carrier was among the first United Technologies businesses to feel the impact of the recession in 2007 when the housing market collapsed. Its refrigerated transportation container business plunged 80 percent in 2008. Analyst Nick Heymann of Sterne Agee said investors are more interested in strong revenue than profit. "Margins right now are not as influential for investors as revenue growth," he informed. "People wanted to see a short to intermediate pickup in revenue." In addition, investors are wary about benefits from favorable currency exchange rates that Heymann said will eventually end. He said he expects a "gradual recovery" as order rates continue to pick up. "This is a solid result but there's no jubilation," Heymann informed. Sikorsky Aircraft posted a 25 percent rise in operating profit, to $145 million, due to strong military orders. And Otis elevator, which benefited from the boom in office construction in China but then fell as China's economy weakened, reported a 17.8 percent increase in profit, to $596 million. Revenue fell in United Technologies' two aerospace businesses, jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney and Hamilton Sundstrand, which makes airline electrical systems. Pratt & Whitney Canada, which makes jet engines for business planes, shipped 633 engines in the first quarter, down from nearly 1,000 in the first quarter of 2009, Hayes said.
MTU Completes First Low-Pressure Turbine for PW1524G Engine
Relevance Score: 1.791 2010-04-19 15:47:44
MTU Aero Engines accomplished another major milestone contributing to the geared turbofan technology of Pratt & Whitney's PurePower(R) PW1524G engine for the Bombardier CSeries aircraft. The first high-speed low-pressure turbine has been completed in Munich. Pratt & Whitney is a United Technologies Corp. company. In a last bolt ceremony held today, MTU Chief Executive Officer Egon Behle, MTU Chief Operating Officer Dr. Rainer Martens and Pratt & Whitney Vice President, Next Generation Product Family Bob Saia, jointly tightened the last bolt. "By completing this work on schedule, we have taken the next crucial step towards the introduction of our globally unique technology into actual production," commented CEO Behle, pleased with a job well done. The turbine will now be dispatched to Pratt & Whitney, where it will be installed in the first PurePower PW1524G engine and put through its paces on the test stand at the Pratt & Whitney facility in West Palm Beach, Florida. Certification of the new propulsion system is scheduled in 2012 with Bombardier's CSeries aircraft planned to enter service in 2013. German flag carrier Lufthansa is the launch customer for the aircraft and its propulsion system. "MTU is an important partner in the PurePower engine program," informed Bob Saia, vice president, Next Generation Product Family, Pratt & Whitney. "The completion of this first high-speed low-pressure turbine ensures the test program for the PW1524G engine continues on schedule." The PW1524G is the CSeries version of the PW1000G Geared Turbofan engine family, which has been selected as exclusive power for the Mitsubishi Regional Jet scheduled to enter service in 2014 and the Bombardier CSeries aircraft scheduled to enter service in 2013. After informing that the launch of these two new aircraft programs, Mitsubishi and Bombardier each have announced the receipt of a number of orders for these new models of aircraft. The PW1000G was also recently selected to power the proposed new Irkut MC-21 narrow-body jet scheduled to enter service in 2016. The PurePower PW800 engine is targeted to power the next generation of large business jets. MTU Aero Engines is the world's only producer of high-speed low-pressure turbines. The Munich-based company started to develop this technology way back in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the full functionality of the turbine has been demonstrated in technology programs and test cycles, which showed the component to be optimally suited for use on production engines. In addition to the low-pressure turbine, MTU contributes the forward four stages of the equally highly-efficient high-pressure compressor, while the rear four stages are being manufactured by Pratt & Whitney. MTU Aero Engines is a long-established player in the industry. The company has a global workforce of about 7,600 employees. In fiscal 2009, MTU posted consolidated sales of some 2.6 billion euros. In the commercial area, MTU is the world's largest independent provider of engine maintenance services. In the military arena, it is Germany's industrial lead company for practically all engines flown by the country's armed forces. MTU is a global technology leader, excelling in low-pressure turbines, high-pressure compressors, and manufacturing and repair techniques. Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company delivering high technology products and services to the global aerospace and building industries.