Newscenter Media News Saab Grintek Defence (SGD) has doubled its turnover in the last two years and witnessed a five-fold increase in its order backlog, precipitating a supplier agreement with electronic manufacturing company Omnigo that paves the way for greatly increased component production.
The supplier agreement was signed at SGD’s Centurion facilities on Wednesday 9 April by Jan Widerström, President and Managing Director of Saab Grintek Defence, and Trevor Raman, Segment Chief Executive Officer at Reunert Applied Electronics.
Widerström explained that the supplier agreement supports SGD’s growth as the company is seeing exponential demand from all over the world across the air, land, and sea domains. “We have taken a decision to grow the supply chain. This is one important step with Omnigo,” he said.
The supplier agreement is seeing Omnigo further commit to providing turnkey electronic manufacturing services to Saab, and Saab Grintek Defence committing to certain business volumes for Omnigo, which will have “bigger responsibility,” Widerström noted. “It’s a win-win. They get more predictable sales volumes, more turnover – we get security of supply,” he told defenceWeb.
Raman said SGD and Omnigo have had a tight partnership for many years. “Given instability in global supply chains, now is a good time for Omnigo and Saab to forge deeper partnerships. We’ve seen over the last seven years significant downturn in local defence work but we are now experiencing an uptake in defence contracts. We have a versatile workforce to meet demand,” Raman told defenceWeb.
Omnigo started out as Factum Electronics in the 1980s, becoming Omnigo in 1999 through a joint venture with Grintek (subsequently Saab Grintek Defence). In 2015, Omnigo was acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary and became a part of the JSE-listed Reunert Group under the Reunert Applied Electronics segment, with Reunert injecting a large investment into the company.
Omnigo specialises in the manufacture of printed circuit board (PCB) assemblies (PBAs), and offers clients a complete turnkey manufacturing solution including production design for manufacture (DFM) services, sourcing and procurement of materials, automated assembly, and design and industrialisation of production and test systems. Omnigo is one of the preferred suppliers to companies in the defence and mining industries
The new supplier agreement with Omnigo covers manufacturing for Saab’s self-protection systems for air, land, and sea. Saab Grintek Defence foresees continuous growth due to the strong global need for electronic warfare self-protection systems, and has numerous multi-year contracts with international customers.
The company has for many years manufactured laser warning and missile approach warning sensors for ships, submarines, and aircraft. These are incorporated into its Land Electronic Defence System (LEDS) modular active protection system for land vehicles, and its Integrated Defensive Aids Suite (IDAS) for helicopters, transport aircraft and combat aircraft.
SGD carries out full research and development as well as manufacturing, creating local intellectual property and products that are sold globally. More than 90% of its products go to international markets, and Saab’s South African operation has exported to nearly 20 countries. About 80% of Saab Grintek Defence’s supply chain is sourced locally through companies like Omnigo.
Securing the supply chain is an important consideration given the need to adapt to the rapidly changing global situation, Widerström said, adding that the agreement with Omnigo could be expanded further down the line.
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