Vard Marine Inc. Welcomes DEW Engineering and Development ULC into the Team Vigilance Preferred Supplier Program
At CANSEC 2023, Vard Marine Inc. (VARD), a Fincantieri company, proudly launched VIGILANCE, as their solution to replace the Royal Canadian Navy’s (RCN) Kingston Class Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDV) under Pillar Two of Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS). In conjunction with Team Vigilance partner companies Thales Canada, Ontario Shipyards, SH Defence, and Fincantieri, VIGILANCE will provide the RCN with a lightweight and operationally flexible military asset that is highly capable and globally deployable. VIGILANCE can perform all roles of the existing MCDV, while also fulfilling crucial naval warfare duties beyond the capabilities of both the MCDV and the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessels (AOPV), including in the littoral battlespace.
This collaboration ensures Team Vigilance can meet the needs of the Royal Canadian Navy’s future fleet with a tailored naval solution, striking the optimum balance between capability and cost, while also maintaining the life-cycle cost advantages VARD’s naval designs are known for.
As a part of the ongoing effort, Team Vigilance continues to assemble a broad coalition of Canadian companies that can offer important services and vital equipment to the program. Building a robust coalition is key to the core objective that VIGILANCE be designed in Canada, built in Canada, and equipped in Canada. To this end, Team Vigilance launched their Preferred Suppliers Program at DEFSEC 2023 in Halifax last October.
DEW a Preferred Supplier to Team Vigilance
At a pre-CANSEC event earlier this year, it was announced that VARD has named DEW Engineering and Development ULC (DEW) as a preferred supplier to Team Vigilance. DEW recently signed a Teaming Agreement with SH Defence as an experienced payload supplier and integrator for The Cube™ multi-mission module system and as a Canada-based production, sustainment, and marketing partner.
Established in 1978, DEW is a leading Canadian defence manufacturing company. With plants in Ottawa, Ontario and Miramichi, New Brunswick, DEW has a 45+ year history of successfully designing, testing, manufacturing, delivering, and supporting a broad range of defence equipment and materiel. DEW has a history of delivering quality shelters and containerised mission systems to the RCN from dive shelters to Deployable Fuel Test Laboratories. All DEW products are completely ITAR free.
DEW and SH Defence are ideal partners for Team Vigilance in the quest to be more operationally efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally sustainable in the Canadian naval and maritime domain.
DEW Deployable Fuel Test Laboratory (DFTL) integrated into The CubeTM by SH Defence
Not only will VIGILANCE provide the sailors of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve the modern tools they need to protect Canada’s vital interests at home and abroad, it will also allow them to continue to leverage the best that Canadian industry has to offer from companies like DEW that remain a trusted source of supply of critical components for RCN operations. VIGILANCE also aims to assist in the ongoing creation and development of a true strategic capability across all aspects of the shipbuilding value chain.
Derek Buxton, Vice President Business Development, Vard Marine Inc., said,
“We remain fully committed to the principle that VIGILANCE will be designed, built, equipped, and sustained in Canada. Modularity and the embarkation of mission payloads is a fundamental principle around which VIGILANCE is designed and thus the ability to manufacture and sustain them right here in Canada is therefore a fundamental element in developing a true sovereign domestic shipbuilding capability. Bringing DEW into the Preferred Suppliers Program is an easy decision given their long-term and successful track record of supplying systems that are critical for enabling RCN mission success. Their partnership with SH Defence is also emblematic of the enduring economic benefit created by the Vigilance program.”
Ian Marsh, president of DEW Engineering and Development ULC, said,
“DEW is very pleased to be named a Preferred Supplier to Team Vigilance. In partnership with SH Defence we are well positioned to promote, design, manufacture and support Cube™ mission modules and to integrate mission payloads into The Cube™ multi-mission module eco-system in Canada for the Canadian marketplace.”