CANBERRA- 14 November 2006: Raytheon Australia today recognised its Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) partners at the Inaugural Raytheon Australia SME ‘Success Together’ Forum 2006 –held at the National Press Club in Canberra today.

Raytheon Australia Managing Director, Ron Fisher, praised the role of small business and emphasised the need for primes to partner with capable SME’s to best deliver on the requirements of the Australian Defence Force.

“Raytheon Australia has come a long way in a relatively short time, building solid partnerships with a number of SME’s and in light of this progress the company wanted to take the opportunity today to recognise them with Supplier Excellence Awards,” Mr Fisher said.

“I have come to believe that SME’s are not only crucial to the success of the Australian economy generally but fundamental to building a strong Australian defence industry.”

“Primes, particularly international organisations such as ourselves, can offer our customers mature capabilities, processes, skills, management and what we term ‘Reachback’ to our parent companies.” 

“Small business, on the other hand, is often endowed with an incredible capacity for innovation and an ability to act as an engine room for growth.”

“Combining these assets offers great opportunities, not only for the respective partners but for our customers as well.”

VMS International is one example of a services provider Raytheon Australia has successfully partnered with, providing support to our avionics business through its standards and calibration labs in Sydney and Brisbane.

“Late last year, VMS International was included as our bid partner in our winning Mission Support proposal for the RAAF’s P3 Orion deeper maintenance and support contract.

The second company, SYPAQ Systems is a capability provider headquartered in Melbourne and is supporting Raytheon on its Air Warfare Destroyer program.

Mr Fisher added that Raytheon Australia’s aims were to maximise its competitiveness through developing strong strategic partnerships with specialist companies to fill its needs.

“Whether you are a capability provider, a product supplier or a service provider, your performance directly contributes to our performance and through partnering we achieve success together.”

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Raytheon Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN). Raytheon, with 2005 sales of US$21.9 billion, is an industry leader in defence and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 80,000 people worldwide.