LOCKHEED MARTIN and SANMINA-SCI join forces to compete for U.S. ARMY’S upgraded vehicular intercommunications system

OWEGO, NY.- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] and Sanmina-SCI have signed a teaming agreement to compete for the U.S. Army program to upgrade thousands of existing tanks, trucks and tactical wheeled vehicles with a next-generation digital intercommunications system.

Lockheed Martin Systems Integration in Owego, NY, will be prime contractor and systems integrator with principal subcontractor Sanmina-SCI’s Defense and Aerospace Systems Division, Huntsville, AL. Together, the two companies will offer an enhanced tactical vehicle version of Sanmina-SCI’s proven TOCNET™ intercommunication system for the Army’s Vehicular Intercommunication System – Extended (VIS-X) competition.

Winner of the $3.5 billion VIS-X contract will integrate and support intercom systems in 54,000 vehicles worldwide, among them Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, up-armored HMMWVs and Army-operated commercial trucks. The VIS-X solution will provide vehicle crews with significant improvements in speech intelligibility and hearing protection, and will enable true on-the-move, command-and-control, over-the-horizon data and voice communications. The U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM), Ft. Monmouth, NJ, is expected to award a five-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract by mid 2008.

“The Lockheed Martin/Sanmina-SCI team will offer the U.S. Army a low risk, off-the-shelf digital system designed for the battlefield environment, along with the testing, fielding, training and maintenance, and logistics to ensure global supportability,” said Michele Evans, vice president of Aircraft Systems at Lockheed Martin Systems Integration – Owego.

“We are extremely excited to team with Lockheed Martin and to have the opportunity to continue to provide the U.S. Army with the proven and extremely capable TOCNET™ intercommunications system,” remarked Jim Cocke, senior vice president, Sanmina-SCI’s Defense and Aerospace Systems Division.

Sanmina-SCI’s digital TOCNETTM system is already successfully integrated on multiple U.S. Army vehicular and Tactical Operations Centers (TOCs) platforms, including Command Post Platform, Division, Brigade and Battalion TOCs. TOCNET™ is deployed on U.S. Marine Corps light armed command and control vehicles integrated by Lockheed Martin, and on Marine Corps Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Iraq, and has been selected as the Joint Intercommunications System for the MRAP vehicle. The system also is operating on a host of command and control air platforms, including VIP Blackhawk helicopters in Iraq.