Australian advanced materials company Quickstep Holdings Limited (QHL) is set to embark on a major new growth phase, announcing that it has signed a Long Term Agreement (LTA) to manufacture parts for the international F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program over the next 20 years.
Under the framework established in the LTA, first JSF parts and first cash flow will be delivered in 2012. The LTA was signed today in Sydney, Australia, with Northrop Grumman Corporation, Los Angeles, a leading global security company. Under the MOU, Quickstep will supply up to 16 different JSF components, including lower side skins, maintenance access panels, fuel tank covers, lower skins and in-board weapons bay doors, projected to amount to some 36,000+ parts over the life of the program and could generate annual turnover of around $50 million by 2015. The total value of the work over the life of the aircraft could be up to $700M.
With this large-scale manufacturing agreement now in place, Quickstep also today announced plans to establish a major new aerospace manufacturing facility at Bankstown Airport in south-west Sydney, signing a 10-year lease over 4,200sqm of buildings that were previously used by US aerospace giant Boeing, in a move that will secure the Company’s long-term aerospace manufacturing capabilities.
Quickstep Chief Executive, Mr Philippe Odouard, said “The signing of this LTA signals a genuine quantum shift in Quickstep’s development. The international defence industry has perhaps one of the highest barriers to entry of any industry in the world, but, for companies that are successful, the contracts are generally large scale and long term. Quickstep has now earned its place as a supplier for JSF, and we hope many additional aerospace and defence contracts will soon follow”.
The move to Bankstown will provide Quickstep with the manufacturing capacity to become the largest independent aerospace composites manufacturer in Australia, with the Company actively seeking further manufacturing contracts. The decision to establish a new manufacturing hub in NSW was underpinned by strong support from the NSW Government and the ability to access an existing workforce with the specialist skill sets required to deliver such a large scale defence program, together with access to the large network of suppliers located in NSW and on the east coast of Australia.
Quickstep is an Australian-based company at the forefront of advanced materials manufacturing and technology transfer for the global aerospace and defence industries. The use of advanced composites is rapidly growing with carbon material usage planned to increase at an average rate of 20% per annum for the next 10 years, underwritten by the emergence of high-use carbon fibre commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350. Quickstep has significant capabilities and expertise in the production of aerospace-grade composite components using both conventional autoclave-based manufacturing and leading edge out-of-autoclave production technologies, including its proprietary Quickstep Process.
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