One Industry Snapshot In January, Erin Cox, spokesperson for Sikorsky (a Lockheed Martin company), provided one, representative high-level datum point on the industry’s well-being, telling MilTech the Sikorsky factory in Stratford, CT, was active with five CH-53K King Stallion aircraft in build – and that there were 42 further aircraft in various stages of production, including 19 that the company is procuring long-lead parts for. “Sikorsky has made significant investments in workforce training, tooling, and machinery to increase the number of aircraft built and delivered year over year. The CH-53K’s digital thread runs from design through production, maintenance, and sustainment, increasing mission availability while reducing pilot and crew workload,” she explained. Peering deeper into the CH-53K programme during the pandemic, in October 2021, the first CH-53K helicopter built in Stratford was delivered to the US Marine Corps. In total, Sikorsky has delivered five operational King Stallion heavy-lift helicopters to the service in Jacksonville, NC, with the next one remaining on schedule for delivery early this year. Rewritten Playbooks for New Challenges In a second pandemic-era industry update, Montville, NJ-basedMarotta Controls interestingly reported the major impact of this epoch has been on its vendor network. During a meeting with MilTech at the Surface Navy Association Symposium in January, Derek Faulkner, the company’s VP for Contracts & Compliance, said Marotta had experienced delays in the receipt of articles, as its suppliers grappled with a wide range of supply chain issues, ranging from workforce reductions due to large numbers of employees being sick with the virus, to shortages of raw materials. “The delays were not across the board,” he stressed, adding that some suppliers were having zero delivery delays, with others experiencing successes and problems in cycles. “You have to find different ways to deal with it, and that has been a big part of what we have had to do.” Supply chain resiliency and effectiveness was also on the minds of the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin from the pandemic’s earliest days Apparently lurching from one set of inputs to another – from Covid strain to travel restrictions to trying to work out the likely impact of the unfolding crisis in Ukraine – the global defence and aerospace industry has had a tough couple of years. Collapse in air travel (and the more recent impounding of leased aircraft by Russia) has had a hugely detrimental effect on the global civil aviation industry – though a surprising number of companies have stated that their exposure to this effect has been largely offset by more robust performance in the defence sector. Although still way too early to be able to determine the substantive, long-term consequences of the last two years or more, Marty Kauchak examines the state of play in the US industry, using just a handful of companies by way of example. At this still early point in 2022, the health of the global economy remains weak. With oil approaching $100 per barrel in response to Russia’s invasion into eastern Ukraine, the Omicron Covid-19 variant still surging in Hong Kong, Russia and other locations, and stock markets in the US and elsewhere registering new 12-month lows, one would be perceived as nothing but overly optimistic to sing the defence sector’s financial praises. Yet, the US defence community continues to steadily work through the pandemic’s third and latest (Omicron) surge – hiring new employees, meeting new and current customer orders and requirements, and, when necessary, restructuring their production processes to remain agile and resilient. While US defence companies are not inspiring long queues of investors to buy their securities, and are not generating a new round of acquisitions and mergers, they are moving forward to compete, to meet contractual commitments and to stay profitable. Defence companies, much like their counterparts in automotive, home appliance and other adjacent sectors, have been grappling with product life cycle and acquisition process impediments through the approximate 25-month pandemic. With a firm hand at the helm of their companies, business leaders have rewritten their playbooks to allow their firms to move head-on through uncertainties – which extend well beyond remote working and other popular, highly-publicized vestiges of this business era. Marty Kauchak The US Defense Industry is More Fit than Frail rty 22 · MT 2/2022 Feature
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