Pipavav, With Saab Australia’s Help Wins Indian Defense Contract

Pipavav is declared ‘qualified’ by the Indian Navy as a Combat Management System (CMS) to modernize or replace up to 100 fighting ships over the next ten years.

Saab will embed key technical staff at the Pipavav development facility in Delhi to continue the technology transfer in October.

Pipavav and Saab had signed a Technical Partnership Agreement(TPA) in August 2012 to continue an ongoing co-operation between the two and covers details about the format for further co-operation and relevant projects.

Saab Australia will supply Pipavav with its technologically advanced 9LV CMS core and work with Pipavav to customize it for the Indian Navy.

“Saab Australia has been supporting Pipavav in capability demonstrations to the Indian Navy over the past 12 months to assist Pipavav gain qualified vendor status as a CMS provider,’’ Saab’s general manager International Defense Wayne Agutter said.

“Pipavav recently received a letter from the Indian Navy informing them that they were now ‘qualified’,” he said.

“The first opportunity now opened up is to offer a 9LV based solution for the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) defender that was released earlier this year. Pipavav has also responded, with Saab Australia support, to a Request for Information from the Indian Navy for CMS upgrades to a further 23 ships across more than five different classes.”

Under Indian defense procurement rules many programs require purchase of equipment and subsystems only from “qualified’’ Indian vendors which limits access to the Indian defense market by foreign companies.

To qualify, Indian vendors must have a minimum amount of indigenous content in the products on offer to demonstrate that they have capability and skills to produce and maintain the products.

The Advanced Maritime Systems Centre will form an integral component of the development program for the combat management systems on these new classes of vessel.

It will be used to train Pipavav software developers, integrate and demonstrate new modules to Indian Navy representatives and allow third party companies the opportunity to cooperatively develop interfaces and demonstrate niche software solutions.