Teaming in 2025: More Relevant Than Ever

Axiom Precision Manufacturing is the consummate team player – and a textbook example of why teaming is increasingly relevant in the defence sector.

The family-owned business was the lead on the ‘ACRE’ project that last year won the DTC’s Teaming Award. It joined forces with CruxML, RFTEQ and Ebor Systems to successfully deliver the CATJAT (Complex Adaptive Threat Jammer Technology) to the ADF.

“We got some great results out of that project and to receive the award was fantastic because it shows how well the four companies worked together,” said Axiom general manager Craig Maynard.

“It certainly shows to primes and Defence what SMEs can do when they collaborate and work hand in hand, rather than competing against each other.

“The outcome of the project demonstrated how much more can be achieved through SME’s Teaming rather than trying to undertake a significant project alone”

It’s a lesson that is also being reinforced in the theatre of war.

For Australia, lessons from the war in Ukraine include the need for a resilient, networked, innovative defence industry, one that can innovate quickly and scale at speed.

It has raised questions about how Australia can fully harness its industrial base for defence readiness and resilience, and how smaller industry participants can be empowered to compete and deliver.

With SMEs accounting for up to 80% of the Australian defence industry, the case for teaming underpins future capability success.

Complementary Capability Teaming

Craig agrees that the case for teaming in the Defence sector continues to grow but like any team, the trick is in the assembly.

“I think there are more opportunities and teaming is becoming more important, especially if you’re talking about complementary capability teaming, rather than two machine shops teaming together.

“You want a team with complementary capabilities, similar to what we did with the team that won the DTC Teaming Award last year. We had mechanical, electronics, software and machine learning all teaming together to develop a complete unit.

“It takes away the reliance on primes to do that type of work.

“So you’ve got sovereign SMEs developing it and it gives you that capability where you can start to compete with the primes. I think that’s where it’s really important.”

The concept of teaming has developed and matured, he said, since the DTC was established in 1996.

But Craig believes Axiom’s strength is in its execution.

“You see some examples where they run a consortium, everybody is separate and they just commit to working together - but they still want to have separate orders and points of contact.

“Our teaming model is a little bit different where we have what we call the Axiom secure supplier network with six companies that are all complementary and able to deliver that full system or sub-system, including design, with Axiom leading the project.

“We developed the concept that we want to work with and presented it to our suppliers and partners.

“All companies sign individual NDAs with a clear scope of work they support.

“Because partners don’t cross over with their capabilities, everybody knows that if they are part of the tender process, they’ll win the work they tender for, if Axiom is successful. That’s because they’re not competing against anyone else and it assures them they are not wasting their time.

“It also means their capabilities are being shared with our customers, including attending project briefs with customers. There’s nothing stopping partners working directly with that customer either, so it really adds benefit for them as well.”

Transparency

Full transparency is another key aspect of Axiom’s  strategy.

The company is very open about who their suppliers are and include them in presentations and meetings so customers can directly ask them questions.

“It’s a very visible supply chain with very strong teaming.

“Axiom leads that team because, realistically, customers still want an ‘arse to kick’ if things go wrong.

“They want one point of contract.”

Protocols are put in place to help ensure the success and on-time delivery of any project, as was achieved with the CATJAT.

There was a strong focus on open communication, with regular meetings where anybody could air grievances or concerns.

“Making sure everything was tracking is important because we had four different companies working on different parts of the project.

“If one started to drag, it had the potential to bring the whole project down.

“A few of the members said it was probably one of the best projects they had ever worked on.”

Leading a team while dealing with Australia’s Defence partners including the US, UK, Canada and Japan adds another layer of complexities.

“I think Primes and Defence are becoming more open to it,” said Craig.

“For the last six or eight months, we’ve been spruiking our secure supply chain network and it’s certainly got a lot of interest because it reduces our customers’ risk when they’ve got one point of call for a whole system delivery.

“It’s certainly getting a lot of interest with all of the primes. They can see it helps reduce their supply chain, reduce their risk and it helps contain the project a bit better - as long as you’ve got a framework that they can easily understand and see.

“If they don’t understand how it works, then they’re not going to go down that path.”

Craig said he fully supported the DTC’s three-year strategy to advance South Australia’s Defence Industry, as well as the five core priorities it identified which he said were “critical”.

Those priorities are:

• Strengthening connections across Australia and with global partners to support AUKUS and international initiatives

• Growing a robust and balanced mid-tier sector to foster innovation and competition

• Championing workforce, skills, and industry development to meet future capability needs Amplifying member voices in national policy discussions

• Evolving DTC membership to deliver greater value to stakeholders

But he said there are many opportunities outside AUKUS.

“AUKUS Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 are important for Australia but I think growing exports outside of that are really important too just because there are some questions around AUKUS with (President) Trump,” Craig said.

And while the DTC recently received a funding commitment from the State Government for a further four years, Craig said Federal support remains shy of where it needs to be.

“There’s a lot of talk about projects that are going to happen but it just feels like not many projects are actually being released.

“You don’t see too much in the spend phase.

“There’s still not a lot of certainty and that’s part of the reason why we’re focusing on expanding our exports because that’s where the growth is, while still being able to support Australian Defence.

“But we’re not sold on putting all our eggs in the Australian Defence basket because we just don’t see enough guaranteed work coming through.”