Hanwha Defense Australia signs contract with HIFraser on LAND 8116 subsystem

02Hanwha Defense Australia (HDA) and HIFraser, an Australian owned and operated specialist engineering company, have signed a $4.4 million contract for Automatic Fire Suppression System for the Land 8116 Protected Mobile Fires Huntsman family of vehicles.

“We’ve been working with HIFraser for some time now to introduce them to our Korean supply chain and confirm transfer of technology arrangements,” Richard Cho, HDA’s Managing Director said. “HDA has worked hard to form links between Australian companies with our Korean supply chain, facilitating access into global markets.”

The fire suppression system design is from Korea’s DNB, the Original Equipment Manufacturer on South Korea’s K9 program. A comprehensive technology transfer program between the two companies now in place to deliver the system to HDA.

HIFraser will be manufacturing the system for the Batch 2 vehicles onwards in Australia. Batch 1 sub-systems will be manufactured in Busan as a joint effort between the Korean OEM and HIFraser.

From the system’s sensors through to the extinguisher cylinders, this agreement will provide a comprehensive fire safety capability for the Huntsman family of vehicles.

“HIFraser are honoured to have signed with Hanwha Defense Australia for supply of the Automatic Fire Suppression System in to LAND 8116,” Jodie Draper, Managing Director of HIFraser said. “With extensive experience in fire suppression we look forward to this opportunity to apply our system’s to Defence’s Land domain, and to building a long-standing relationship with Hanwha.”

HIFraser will also be conducting the validation and verification testing program in Australia under the guidance of DNB, transferring not just the ‘know how’ but the ‘know why’ behind the technology.

ENDS

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Images:

Pic 4: L-R: Richard Cho (Managing Director HDA) and Richard Kirkby (Chairman HIFraser) sign the contracts.

Pic 9 L-R: Russell Kim (General manager HDA), Debora Fortkamp (Business Development Manager HIFraser), Richard Cho (Managing Director HDA), Richard Kirkby (Chairman HIFraser), Alecia Millard (Project Manager HDA), Richard Marshall (Project Director HDA) at the signing ceremony at HDA’s Melbourne HQ.

Pic 10 L-R: Debora Fortkamp (Business Development Manager HIFraser), Richard Cho (Managing Director HDA), Richard Kirkby (Chairman HIFraser), Glenn Halupka (Lead Vehicle Systems Engineer HDA), Richard Marshall (Project Director HDA) at the signing ceremony at HDA’s Melbourne HQ.

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About Hanwha Defense Australia

Hanwha Defense Australia is a subsidiary of Hanwha Aerospace, a division of the vast Republic of Korea Fortune 500 conglomerate Hanwha Corporation. Hanwha Corporation has been operating in Australia since 2005 in areas including mining equipment, logistics and sustainable energy.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Hanwha Defense Australia was established in 2019 with an initial focus on Land Systems. The company signed a contract with the Commonwealth of Australia in December 2021 to supply self-propelled artillery systems under LAND 8116, a $0.9 billion to $1.3 billion project. These vehicles will be manufactured in the Greater Geelong area of Victoria at the HDA Armoured vehicle Centre of Excellence (H-ACE), now under construction.

About HI Fraser

HIFraser is part of the HIFraser Group, an Australian-owned combination of specialised businesses including Aquip Systems, Pipeline Actuation Control (PAC) and Eastern Automation. Founded in Hobart in 1955, HIFraser has been working with Defence since the beginning. HIFraser design, build and sustain Australia’s most advanced Safety Critical & Habitability Systems, and are best known for their Defence work in the maritime space, including supplying over 1 million components into the Collins Class submarine program. Now headquartered in Sydney with over 100 employees nationally, HIFraser services a range of additional industries from oil & gas, commercial marine, commercial building and transport.

For more information visit https://www.hifraser.com.au/

For further information please contact:

Katherine Ziesing

Strategic Communications Manager

Hanwha Defense Australia Pty Ltd

(t) +61 419 014 308

(e) katherine.ziesing@hanwha-defence.com.au