Mr. Norman R.A. Smyth, President of Thales Systems Canada Inc. (Thales Systems) of Ottawa, Ontario, announced today that the company has been selected by the Canadian Government, as part of the team led by SHL Systemhouse Inc. of Ottawa, to implement the integrated logistics support (ILS) aspects of the Canadian Forces' Supply System Upgrade (CFSSU) project. Mr. Smyth’s announcement followed an earlier announcement in Ottawa by Stan Kurylowicz, President of SHL Systemhouse Canada/Asia, and a joint announcement by the Honourable David Dingwall, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and the Honourable David Collenette, Minister of National Defence that the contract, worth an estimated $150 million, was to be awarded to SHL. In addition to Thales Systems, other members of the SHL team include Sun Microsystems of Canada, MacDonald Dettwiler, Sybase Canada, Computer Sciences Corporation Canada Inc., DAP Technology, Datatech Systems, and Eduplus Management Group.

Widely credited with having defined the transformational outsourcing market, SHL is a recognized leader in enabling business transformation through client/server computing. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, SHL employs more than 4,500 professionals who serve major commercial and public sector clients in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

In making his announcement, Mr. Smyth explained that "the purpose of the CFSSU project is to upgrade the existing inventory management and supply system which has been in use by the Canadian Forces for the past 20 years. The CFSSU project will provide a global computer-based system to manage distribution, accounting, provisioning, and replacement for all supplies to Canadian Forces’ bases and units in Canada and abroad. The upgraded system will use leading-edge client/server-based computing technology and it will be capable of handling up to 170,000 transactions daily and over 6.2 million issues of materiel annually. Over 9,000 military and civilian personnel will be involved in use of the system that will track some 1.4 million stock numbers for DND’s $11 billion inventory. While the upgraded system will produce considerable savings in inventory investment and provide improved service and increased productivity, it is expected to pay for itself within five years of project completion."

"The CFSSU project will last approximately five years, with almost 3,000 person years of work taking place in all regions of Canada. Of the total contract value, approximately 28 percent will accrue to small and medium-sized business; Thales Systems’ share of the project will be nearly five million dollars over the initial three year period."

Mr. Smyth also noted that "the CFSSU project is one of the larger logistics projects to be undertaken by the company, comparing very closely to Thales Systems’ ILS activity in another DND project — the Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel (MCDV) project where Thales Systems is the mission systems integrator."

"In the CFSSU project, Thales Systems will be responsible for the logistics support analysis and technical documentation. As a systems integration company, we take great pride in our ability to provide the full range of engineering services, including logistics engineering. We are very proud to contribute our expertise to the SHL team for the CFSSU project and we look forward to this and similar endeavours in the future. SHL demonstrated its leadership throughout the year-long Project Definition phase, and they continually showed their concern for fulfilling all of the customer’s requirements. For us, the $4.6 million CFSSU project will provide 30 man-years of work over the first three years after contract award, and it will likely mean adding three or four persons to our ILS team. We hope it will be a stepping stone to other large projects of similar complexity."

Thales Systems, based in Ottawa, Ontario, is a systems integration company which designs, develops, and delivers defence, aerospace, and civil systems on a turnkey, full-supported basis. The primary business of Thales Systems is command and control (C²) for ship, land, air, space, support, and infrastructure applications; the secondary business is land countermine systems. The company has extensive capabilities and expertise in C² technologies, sensors, communications, weapons, navigation, robotics, software development, and integrated logistics support (ILS). Since 1988, Thales Systems has been the mission systems integrator for the Navy’s $650 million Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel (MCDV) project. In that project, Thales Systems is providing communications, navigation, surveillance, armament, and minesweeping systems for the MCDV fleet of 12 ships, as well as the integrated logistics support for all of these systems. The company has a multi-year contract to teach ILS to Canadian Forces’ personnel and is regarded as the leader in Canada in this field. Thales Systems is a subsidiary of Thales Group, the world’s third largest defence/aerospace electronics company with 44,500 employees and revenues of $8.4 billion. Thales specializes in aerospace, command, control, and communications, missile systems, detection systems, and information technology.