Life-saving technology for military vehicles drives Fife plant's success

Published on Monday 30 August 2010 17:14

PIONEERING battery technology that is saving lives on the frontline of the armed forces will contribute this year to record sales figures at the Glenrothes plant of US defence firm Raytheon.

• Jim Trail hopes the new developments will raise the firm's sales figures, already at their highest level ever Picture: Neil Hanna

The battery management system prevents batteries in military vehicles being drained by increasingly sophisticated electronic devices.

The firm is developing similar technology aimed at new hybrid vehicles with motorsport company Prodrive and the University of Manchester.

Jim Trail, Raytheon's chief operating officer and general manager of the Glenrothes plant, expects these projects will this year add to the firm's highest sales figures in its 50 year history.

Trail said: "Due to the additional electronics now on vehicles, they drain the battery extremely quickly. We have come up with a system that improves on the current system at a more competitive cost.

"It gives the users improved information to make decisions that can save lives.

"When it is time to get out, if they don't know if the battery has been drained they will be in trouble.

"Our system gives them advanced notice it is time to switch the engines on to drive more power back in," he added.

With 560 employees, the number of workers is down from a recent peak of about 700 in 2004, but makes up just less than half of Raytheon's 1,350-strong UK workforce.

Trail said the firm contributes about 25 per cent of the group's 350 million turnover and says profitability at the plant has gone up 10 per cent year on year.

Although Raytheon continues to be largely a defence contractor, Trail sees the firm expanding its reach further into commercial enterprise, a diversification strategy that will counter austerity-driven cuts to the Ministry of Defence budget.

"We see opportunities in both commercial and defence areas," said Trail. "New market opportunities are opening up for us in electric vehicles, electric aircraft as well as the oil and gas industry."

The firm has come a long way since it was established as an aviation manufacturer, Hughes, in 1960. The plant was originally built to manufacture diodes, but diversified into the development of components for electronics products such as pocket calculators, TV touch tuners, touch dial phones. More recently the firm also designed and manufactured power products which are part of the International Space Station.

Andrew Watson, the firm's radar and sensors business unit manager, said the firm's move ten years ago to design as well as manufacture new products allowed it to resist the seepage of jobs to low-cost centres in eastern Europe and Far East which critically hit a number of Scottish electronics manufacturers.

"One of the key tenets of our strategic thrust was the long-term survival of this facility, to be blunt," said Watson.

"The strategic choices we made about ten years ago means were able to sustain the manufacturing capability in Glenrothes."