A manufacturing and support base
Kongsberg has opened a manufacturing and support facility in Adelaide, South Australia. The official opening took place on 5 September 2024, attended by Australia’s minister Pat Conroy and Norway’s defence minister Bjørn Arild Gram. The company invested A$25 million in a 2,500-square-metre facility on a 6,000-square-metre site.
The facility is intended to support Australian acquisition and sustainment programmes, including the Naval Strike Missile, NASAMS and Protector systems. Kongsberg identifies its local activities as:
- manufacture and assembly;
- integration, testing and verification;
- training and support.
Local design and construction
Kongsberg Defence Australia signed its construction contract with Adelaide-based Tandem Building Group on 20 February 2023. The project followed an early contractor involvement phase. The company selected a purpose-built facility in Mawson Lakes and reported that site mobilisation had commenced. John Fry, then general manager, linked the investment to local production and sustainment activities for current and planned programmes.
The design and construction partnerships also included Section Six Architects, based in Parkside, and Adelaide-based Norman Disney & Young. In that February announcement, Kongsberg expected approximately 30 South Australian companies to participate over the project’s duration, with between 70 and 130 people on site at any one stage. Those figures described the construction project rather than the factory’s permanent workforce.
The original schedule anticipated full occupation and operation by early 2024. That was the timetable announced during mobilisation. The September 2024 opening establishes the later inauguration date; it does not establish when each production or support activity first began.
Australian supplier participation
On 24 February 2023, Kongsberg announced a separate contract with Marand for fabrication of launch-ramp systems. Marand planned to manufacture the units at its Geelong site. The contract brought its large-scale manufacturing and welding capability into Kongsberg’s Australian supplier network. The work was also intended to draw on a Modern Manufacturing Initiative grant awarded in August 2022 for welding excellence.
Marand chief executive Rohan Stocker pointed to the company’s previous exports to Kongsberg in Norway through the F-35 programme. He presented the Australian agreement as a further application of its fabrication capability. Fry said Kongsberg was expanding its local manufacturing base and partnering with suppliers to provide subassemblies for its final production line.
The February supplier announcement said production under the contract would start immediately. It describes the start of that supplier programme, rather than completed deliveries from the new Adelaide factory.
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