The Defence Industry Committee of New Zealand sponsors the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence to Industry on an annual basis. Nominations were called from the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) and other organisations with an interest in providing equipment and services to Defence. Twenty nominations were received for the 2009 Awards.The awards are made to those organisations the Committee deems to be making a significant contribution to the NZDF and at the same time allows those organisations to use the awards and nominations to promote their excellence to their customers.
The awards dinner was held in Wellington at the Duxton Hotel on Wednesday 14 October. Hon Dr Wayne Mapp, Minister of Defence was the guest speaker and he presented the awards.
This year Superstructure Group was a Category B finalist (contracts under $7m) and received the Highly Commended award for the supply and support of specialist intelligence analysis software (SiD) for the NZ Army.
The assessment process involved being questioned by a panel of Defence personnel on a range of topics - the key aspect was looking for where Superstructure had gone beyond the expectations of Defence as a support organisation.
To this end we were able to provide a range of anecdotal evidence on:
- Provision of superior goods or services in response to Defence needs
- Innovation in design and implementation
- Undertaking of technically advanced activities for Defence
- Submission of ideas which result in increased efficiency, effectiveness or economy for Defence
During the session the panel revealed that they had received very supportive and glowing reports from our Defence customers.In making the award the NZDF recognized that Superstructure has provided software and services at a consistently high professional standard to a diverse range of NZDF units over a period of 8 years. Support has been provided above and beyond contract obligations – with a response that recognises the risks that the NZDF faces, particularly with deployed missions.
Specifically,
- Superstructure has proposed solutions that could provide significant decrease in the risk to deployed missions. These include disaster recovery plans and field intelligence collection plans.
- Superstructure has invested in R&D to extend the intelligence collection capability for the NZDF, in particular an interface to hand held devices for rapid intelligence collection.
- Superstructure’s assessment of intelligence capability has provided mission feedback which could provide significant operational efficiencies and risk reduction to save lives.
In a broader context, Superstructure is recognised as the leading supplier of intelligence and investigation software and services to New Zealand government agencies and has penetrated the Australian market.