Babcock International announced on 26 November 2024 that it has successfully delivered the first package of work the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) under Project Tampa: the MoD’s accelerator programme focused on the use of additive manufacturing.
Project Tampa seeks to explore how the UK MoD can exploit additive manufacturing to increase material availability across defence assets, overcome the obsolescence of parts, reduce costs, and improve performance and availability, thus enhancing UK defence capabilities.
The MoD awarded Project Tampa contracts in April 2023 to Babcock, NP Aerospace, Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL), Thales and AMFG, the focus of which has been to explore how additive manufacturing can help transform material availability across defence operations.
The Babcock team has been working across multiple domains to deliver solutions for complex parts across a variety of platforms. The project included complex components for the L118 Light Guns of the British Army, the 4.5-inch (114 mm) gun on the Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigates, and the torpedo launch systems for both the navy’s Astute and Dreadnought classes of submarine.
The Light Gun eye shaft has been recommended for adoption into the defence inventory by the MoD’s Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) organisation and is ready to be ordered through Babcock’s Material Availability Service.
“Delivering the first package of work for Project Tampa is a significant milestone for our customer, as we continue to move forward to increase material availability across the sector,” Kate Robinson, managing director for Babcock’s Land Sector, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “Working collaboratively with industry partners and our customer has enabled us to explore the challenges and opportunities together to deliver the right solutions. We are now engaged in delivering the next work package in this programme,” she added.
“It’s been great to see the progress made by the Babcock team on Project Tampa’s first spiral of work,” said Charlotte Robinson, UK Strategic Command’s Defence Support Innovation team leader. “Through collaboration with the other Project Tampa suppliers and DE&S delivery teams, Babcock has demonstrated that additive manufacturing can play a key role in improving defence part availability.”
