• Minister for Defence Christopher Pyne speaking at the opening of Safran’s new facility in Botany.
Ewen Levick
    Minister for Defence Christopher Pyne speaking at the opening of Safran’s new facility in Botany. Ewen Levick
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Minister for Defence Christopher Pyne, Safran CEO Martin Sion, and the CEO of Safran Pacific Alexis de Pelleport opened the company’s new facility in Botany this week.

The new facility will house testing and maintenance equipment in around 100 square metres of workrooms, including a clean room, a laser room, climate testing systems, as well as avionics, inertial navigation and optronic test benches. The suite of equipment is also capable of servicing submarine optronic masts.

The new site has potential for further expansion and is strategically positioned in close proximity to key Defence sites and Sydney Airport.

“This new facility is a vote of confidence in the defence industry and will let Safran better support the ADF,” Minister Pyne said.

The opening marks an important milestone in the company’s local presence.

The existing Bankstown site had become too small for Safran’s increasing industrial footprint and staffing, prompting the French company to relocate its local subsidiary to the larger premises.

Safran has increased its local workforce from 11 to 25 in 2018 and expects more growth in 2019.

 “The opening of this new site enables our local subsidiary… to expand and increase its service capabilities towards its Australian customers,” CEO Martin Sion said.

“The company has provided support to the French and foreign military forces for more than 75 years in optical and navigation systems, and we are today focused on providing the same level of support to the ADF.”

Safran has supplied optronic and inertial navigation systems to 70 nuclear and conventional submarines, including the new French Barracuda-class nuclear attack submarines.

The company recently signed an agreement with Australian company Advanced Navigation on the navigation subsystem of the Future Submarine program. The partnership will see Safran and Advanced Navigation’s engineers working together as part of a combined project team.

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