STOCKPORT COMPANY SECURES £37 MILLION CONTRACT

Heaton Chapel based WFEL has secured a £37million contract to supply the Swiss armed forces with a further tranche of its latest generation Dry Support Bridge (DSB).

The agreement will see WFEL delivering DSBs to armasuisse, the procurement agency for the Swiss armed forces, from now until the end of 2016, rounding off a highly successful 2013 for the Stockport company.

The deal follows an earlier contract, worth £57million, to supply DSBs to the Swiss armed forces, agreed in December 2011. The announcement also comes just weeks after WFEL delivered its 100th DSB to the US Army.

The DSB is one of the most advanced rapidly-deployable military bridging systems in the world and the Swiss order includes specially-designed walkways to allow simultaneous vehicle and foot crossings. The DSB can be deployed by just eight soldiers in 90 minutes. It spans a gap of up to 46 metres and has a military load classification of 120.

The bridge, manufactured in the UK by WFEL at its state-of-the-art Stockport site, has been used by US armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and is also held in inventory by Turkey. It is suitable for both military and civilian operations.

Ian Wilson, WFEL chief executive, said:

“This is a landmark order and further endorsement of our Dry Support Bridge and its unique capabilities in both military and disaster relief operations. armasuisse has been a key customer for the business for a number of years and this agreement extends and strengthens that relationship.

“The feedback we received following the order was a testament to the quality of our work. The DSB is an advanced, next-generation system that can be deployed rapidly by soldiers, capabilities it has demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan. It continues to generate interest from armed forces across the world looking to invest in bridging assets for use on combat operations and during national emergencies and disasters. It is now the most widely adopted system of its type.”

The DSB will be fitted to the chassis of the specialist IVECO trucks used by the Swiss armed forces.

WFEL, which also manufactures the Medium Girder Bridge, supplies 40 armed forces worldwide and is a wholly owned subsidiary of land defence systems provider Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH (“KMW”) . The company traces its roots as a defence engineering business to 1915 and has been designing and manufacturing tactical military bridges in Stockport since the 1970s.