Douglas Caster
Chief Executive, Ultra Electronics Holdings plc
"Ultra, with its UK teaming partner GKN, has developed a revolutionary new system for protecting aircraft structures from ice build up during flight."
Ultra Electronics is a successful group of twenty specialist businesses
offering a through–life product and services portfolio that includes high
technology electronic and electro–mechanical systems, sub–systems, products
and components for defence, security, aerospace and transport applications
worldwide. Ultra’s products and services are used on platforms such as
aircraft, ships, submarines and armoured vehicles as well as in surveillance
and communications systems, airports and transport systems around the world.
In Ultra’s main defence markets in recent times, expenditure has been
increasing on battlespace IT systems and equipment to provide military customers
with better situational awareness, quicker and more reliable command and control
and the ability to synchronise military firepower with much improved accuracy.
Armed forces are being equipped to allow the rapid deployment of light, mobile
troops and to enable the exploitation of superior intelligence of the military
situation through the use of battlespace IT. Ultra has pursued a strategy that
has positioned the Group to benefit from these trends and constantly seeks
opportunities to direct its R&D expenditure in order to offer new niche products
and services to meet such customer requirements.
In the civil aerospace market, development programmes for new aircraft types
provide Ultra with opportunities to win positions with new and innovative
solutions. For example, Ultra has established itself as the world leader in
cabin quietening for turboprop aircraft as a result of a continuous programme
of focused R&D. More recently, following a major R&D programme with some support
from the DTI, Ultra, in conjunction with its UK teaming partner GKN, has
developed a revolutionary new system for protecting aircraft structures from
ice build up during flight. This innovative system has been selected by Boeing
for its new 787 Dreamliner aircraft for which it is a key technology enabler of
the high efficiency wing that will help the aircraft achieve a 20 percent
improvement in fuel efficiency.
Ultra believes that sustainable success is derived from a focus on positioning
its products and services on a broad range of major international platforms and
programmes. Such successful positioning is achieved by ensuring that Ultra’s
offerings are differentiated from those of the competition in a manner that the
customer values. Focus is sustained on creating and maintaining this
differentiation in the future and on continuing to provide innovative solutions
to satisfy customer requirements through the careful application of the
company’s R&D funds.
