Single supply chain proposal wins Defence, AIDN support

Australia is adopting a UK program designed to help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) work under one supply chain system to cut compliance and administration costs in doing business with the Australian Department of Defence and major primes in the nation’s defence sector.

The system, known as JOSCAR, has already been adopted locally by Defence and by companies including BAE Systems Australia, Raytheon Australia, Babcock Australasia, Lockheed Martin Australia, Boeing Defence Australia, and Saab Australia.

The JOSCAR system, which will launch in Australia in June, streamlines supplier compliance data management with a one-to-many ‘community’ approach, aligning requirements across Primes. It centralises assurance information and reduces time, effort, duplication, and costs for both buyers and suppliers according to Hellios, the UK-based supplier information and risk management company that has developed the new system.

The UK system currently comprises two dozen major defence companies and 6,000 SMEs and constitutes a supplier management community that has slashed compliance and administration costs for UK buyers and suppliers.

“Australian SMEs now have the opportunity to secure the same benefits through the introduction of a standardised and simplified approach that has the endorsement of a number of major primes,” said Tom Maund, Country Manager of Hellios Australia.

The system offers a ‘one to many’ solution where a supplier only needs to fill in the JOSCAR questionnaire once, even if it supplies multiple defence primes and the Department of Defence.

Industry has welcomed the new system and the prospect of lower costs passed on to members of the SME community.

“This is a great initiative and one that our company wholeheartedly endorses,” said Ben Hudson, Chief Executive Officer, BAE Systems Australia. “We’re looking forward to working with industry and the system’s architects to ensure supplier efficiencies can be implemented across our major programs.”

“AIDN fully supports the introduction of JOSCAR in response to members’ concerns about cost and administration burden of demonstrating compliance with customer requirements,” said Brent Clark, CEO of AIDN National. “Members achieving JOSCAR registration should experience simplified compliance processes [that] makes it easier to do business with new and existing customers.”

The Australian JOSCAR system will be managed and supported by a Hellios team based in Brisbane and led by Tom Maund. Hellios, which was started in 2012, is a supplier information and risk management company operating in the financial services and aerospace, defence and security industry, the company says. The business employs more than 100 people in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Australia, and Spain.