In the light of continued decreasing defence spending by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government, Armscor will intensify its commercialisation strategy by building on a top five product base.
The furtherance of the swords into ploughshares analogy will, according to the budgetary review and recommendations (BRR) report on the 2022/23 Armscor annual report delivered to the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans (PCDMV) this week, see Armscor services “more widely recognised and used” by other government departments.
Armscor’s top five commercial offerings, covering products and services, are an ultrasonic broken rail detector (UBRD), Hazmat filter cartridges and canisters; hand and surface sanitisers; Vistanet maritime domain awareness software; and a beach barrier system.
Three Armscor divisions – Flamengro, Hazmat and Protechnik – are currently developing and/or working on products and services with commercial applications.
Flamengro, billed as a centre for computational mechanics modelling, is developing a dynamic calibration test laboratory with a view to SANAS (SA National Accreditation System) accreditation. The work is in response to what is termed “market need” for a “niche” laboratory to conduct material testing and sensor calibration to serve industries outside the defence sector such as the built environment for testing and qualification of materials.
Centurion-based Hazmat completed development and homologation of branded filter cartridges for a private sector company and the BRR has it “sales are starting to improve/show benefit”. Additionally initial discussions with another private sector company on branded filter cartridges is in initial stages with a filter cover developed for another private sector company with another in progress.
Also in Centurion, Protechnik is working on integrating chemical detectors on UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) for remote chemical detection. “This type of work will be beneficial for government departments like Department of Environmental Affairs, SAPS (SA Police Service), the Border Management Authority (BMA) and first responder companies,” as per the BRR.
