Australian Defence Apparel (ADA), a uniform and equipment provider spanning military, law enforcement, healthcare and numerous government and corporate industries, is expanding their existing Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) membership to their Bendigo Factory.
The DISP provides a layer of protection for the Defence supply chain, allowing for improved resilience, security and assurance of sourcing arrangements. The program operates across four levels: governance, personnel, physical and cybersecurity.
Once the membership is extended to Bendigo, ADA will be the only uniform manufacturer that has achieved DISP membership and holds a membership across all levels. The membership applies to ADA’s headquarters in Thomastown, and they plan to extend this membership to their 5000 square metre facility in Bendigo this year. Once this is achieved, they will also be the only uniform provider in Australia to have a DISP-certified factory.
"This is a crucial element of ADA’s growth plan and is especially critical considering the current landscape whereby essential and highly classified data is often under threat. “ADA ensures that we keep everything in-house; we don’t use managed service providers or external providers to host any of our critical systems," said David Connors, Chief Technology Officer and CISO of ADA.
“Data sovereignty is vital as well. We go through very rigid workflows around vetting any new IT platforms that we look to bring into the organisation to ensure we can check where the data is held, who has access to it, and how is it being held."
The membership provides confidence and assurance to Defence and other government entities that ADA understand the security requirements of the business, both physical (protecting Customer's uniforms) and cyber (including IP and the personal information of Customer's employees).
“From a cybersecurity perspective, this membership ensures not only is the data of our employees safe, but also the data of our clients and customers," said Narelle Dimopoulos, ADA’s Governance and Risk Manager.
“A large part of our business is our total apparel management system (TAMS) offering, whereby we provide a personalised B2B contemporary online ordering platform. This allows clients to access a unique and secure ordering hub personalised to their requirements, make purchases and track their orders. A seamless user experience, whilst maintaining the highest degree of data security and privacy is our utmost priority.”