Hanwha Defense Australia (HDA) and HIFraser, an Australian owned and operated specialist engineering company, have signed a $4.4 million contract for Automatic Fire Suppression System for the Land 8116 Protected Mobile Fires Huntsman family of vehicles.
“We’ve been working with HIFraser for some time now to introduce them to our Korean supply chain and confirm transfer of technology arrangements,” Richard Cho, HDA’s Managing Director said. “HDA has worked hard to form links between Australian companies with our Korean supply chain, facilitating access into global markets.”
The fire suppression system design is from Korea’s DNB, the Original Equipment Manufacturer on South Korea’s K9 program. A comprehensive technology transfer program between the two companies is now in place to deliver the system to HDA.
HIFraser will be manufacturing the system for the Batch 2 vehicles onwards in Australia. Batch 1 sub-systems will be manufactured in Busan as a joint effort between the Korean OEM and HIFraser.
From the system’s sensors through to the extinguisher cylinders, this agreement is expected to provide a comprehensive fire safety capability for the Huntsman family of vehicles.
“HIFraser are honoured to have signed with Hanwha Defense Australia for supply of the Automatic Fire Suppression System in to Land 8116,” Jodie Draper, Managing Director of HIFraser said. “With extensive experience in fire suppression we look forward to this opportunity to apply our systems to Defence’s Land domain, and to building a long-standing relationship with Hanwha.”
HIFraser will also be conducting the validation and verification testing program in Australia under the guidance of DNB, transferring not just the ‘know how’ but the ‘know why’ behind the technology.