A collaboration between two veteran-owned SA defence industry SMEs has been honoured at this year’s Defence Teaming Centre’s (DTC) annual defence industry awards.
The event, held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on Friday 5 December, has recognised achievements in the areas of Innovation, Collaboration, and Transformation & Change and it was a multifaceted partnership between Ares Armaments Australia, who have experience in precision, hand-loaded small arms ammunition, and Aimpoint, a provider of Defence-focused vocational training and workforce transition services that received the judges’ attention in the Collaboration category.
“We were determined to provide a sovereign, precision-driven alternative to imported munitions, particularly in small arms categories, but the vision was at risk due to the extremely limited supply of local skills,” Ares CEO, Jason Murray, explained.
“Partnering with Aimpoint, addressing both these gaps became personal missions.”
The collaboration between Ares and Aimpoint has addressed critical capability and workforce gaps aligned to Australian Sovereign Defence Industrial Priority 4 (SDIP 4) – Domestic Manufacture of Guided Weapons, Explosive Ordnance and Munitions.
Australia has relied largely on foreign manufacturers and suppliers of small arms and related ammunition and it was with this in mind that Ares Armaments Australia was founded just over 19 months ago.
From a manufacturing facility in Seaford, Ares has produced a range of made-to-order munitions to exact specifications for Defence and law enforcement clients, uplifting domestic manufacture of small arms ammunition and supporting supply chain resilience.
Aimpoint has assisted by developing a program that supplies Defence-ready industrial workforce by training and certifying veterans and industry entrants for specialised roles across the GWEO (Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance) manufacturing spectrum.
For Ares, it has trained a security cleared, veteran-led workforce with real-world experience in weapons handling, compliance, quality assurance, and precision manufacturing.
Through traineeships and apprenticeships, Aimpoint has ensured transitioning Defence personnel and industry entrants are job-ready to work within sovereign munitions manufacturing environments, including at Ares and partner facilities.
“For Aimpoint and ARES, sovereignty is not a slogan — it is a guiding value,” Aimpoint CEO, Mark Robinson, stated. “It defines how we recruit, how we train, and how ARES has been able to deliver a nationally significant outcome: a veteran-owned, export-capable SME contributing to sovereign munitions production, workforce development, and strategic growth.”
Ares has recently announced its intention to establish a second weapons manufactory in regional South Australia in the next 12 months with Murray Bridge being identified as a target site. The proposed facility will manufacture guided weapons and explosive ordnance and will assemble a workforce from the veteran community with the support of Aimpoint who have established an apprenticeship scheme to enable sustained supply of skill and talent.
Ares and Aimpoint have jointly self-funded an initiative championing the Defence Industry Development Strategy and, through this collaboration, developed an Armourers Course that will offer an appropriate qualification in the management and handling of small arms to Defence.
The companies have also developed a new specialist Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) weapons training course for defending troops and critical infrastructure against Type 1 Uncrewed Aerial Systems using Ares proprietary CUAS Rooster Ammunition for both Defence and Law Enforcement personnel, for which no formal training program currently exists.
DTC award judge Allan Ryan, director and founder of the Hargraves Institute, said that he saw the Ares/Aimpoint project as a great example of collaboration across two very different organisations in manufacturing and training.
“The result is sovereign capability through people and the ability to onboard people quickly and efficiently,” Ryan said.
The Innovation category in the DTC’s awards was won by complex systems design company Shoal, which has developed an innovative solution to a Defence need for a more effective approach to rapidly assessing warship signatures thereby enabling ‘on-the-fly’ threat analysis and decision-making.
Shoal has developed FastCAD, using LiDAR and photogrammetry, to capture and generate high-resolution CAD models allegedly faster, more cost-effectively and efficiently than contemporary methods.
“The new technology developed and applied by Shoal is not only important in the defence arena, but is also likely to have some significant applications beyond the naval domain, promising significant savings in terms of time," Director of the Australian Centre for Business Growth, Award judge Ryan Williams, commented.
Cyber and spectrum security solutions provider Consunet was a winner in the Transformation and Change category for its success in adopting the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) across its organisation.
This has included a structured investment in staff training to embed Lean-Agile principles and practices at all levels, ensuring a consistent and collaborative approach to delivering complex Defence projects.
Their implementation of SAFe has changed the enterprise and how the teams plan, coordinate, and deliver work. Program Increment (PI) planning has become a key mechanism for aligning priorities, managing dependencies, and delivering value incrementally.