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Manufacturing itself remains the central business activity of Ingleburn-based defence communications company Rojone, while at the same time the SME has adopted state-of-the-art production processes and a raft of high-tech capabilities to underpin its proposition.
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The firm’s managing director, Livia Brady, told Defence Connect that Rojone focused mainly on delivering RF and wireless communications for the defence sector.
“We do a lot of componentry for interconnection of radio systems,” she added.
Brady explained that overall, Rojone built the boxes, the technology and the wires and cabling to link all the hardware together.
“It really depends on what we [are] to build or what we need to design or what solution we have to provide,” she said.
“We start at the antenna end, so we can actually manufacture the antennas. We've done a lot of GPS antennas, a lot of our broadband antennas for the military, all the way through to the interconnect components, which is the cable assemblies that connect the antennas to the radio systems or to the broadcasting systems within whatever platform it might be.”
In terms of the ability of Australia’s armed forces to talk, engage and connect with each other, Brady said the local development of technology was rather good.
“We have some pretty clever people in this country,” she said. “It's not only just the communication; it's the actual radar systems and making sure whatever resources they have is plugged in and that it's fed back to the command post or the people out in the field.”
Brady said that while providing voice capabilities was part of her company’s brief, more important was ensuring the interactive aspect of data communication and transport.
“It's not so much talking, it's actually getting that information, that data, all that information needs to come back,” she explained. “We provide that service.
“We're happy to earn income and to play a role in manufacturing in this country. I don't know how many people have asked me this: ‘Why do you manufacture here?’"
“I said, ‘Because I want to, and I have two grandchildren and I want them to be able to manufacture in this country’. It's amazing how many uni students that we get through our place that have never touched a piece of hardware. They've got all the academia behind them, but they don't know what hardware is, what cable is.
“We had a girl who specialised in waveguide, and she'd never seen waveguide in her life. I had a piece, and said, ‘What do you think about that?’
“She said, ‘What is it?’ I went, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
To hear more from Livia Brady, stay tuned for our exclusive podcast.
