WFEL has commenced production of Boxer vehicles for the British Army at its new manufacturing plant in the northwest of England.
The fabrication of vehicle sub-assemblies has been taking place over the last few weeks at WFEL’s new production facility at Stockport. As part of the Technology Transfer Programme between KMW and WFEL, UK welding personnel have undertaken secondments of up to a year at parent company KMW's Boxer manufacturing site in Hamburg, Germany.
Here, staff worked on the production of Boxer vehicles for KMW’s existing customers and are now fully qualified to produce fabricated drive module hulls for the UK Boxer variants.
“Today marks a significant milestone for the Boxer program, as these modernised modular vehicles become one step closer to being delivered to the British Army," UK Minister for Defence Procurement, Jeremy Quin, said. “Supporting 120 jobs in Stockport, vital knowledge and industry expertise will be central to building armoured hulls and assembling the finished Boxer vehicles required for future Army capabilities.”
WFEL is the KMW UK footprint for the Boxer MIV Program. As well as manufacturing the armoured hulls for the British Army's new vehicles, WFEL will be responsible for the Assembly, Integration and Testing (AIT) of a total of 225 Boxer MIV vehicles under the £2.3 bn contract signed between UK MoD and ARTEC in November 2019.
WFEL has recently announced a number of sub-contract awards as part of the supply chain roll out program for its Boxer Programme, including agreements with Horstman, David Brown Santasalo and BCW Engineering.