India is the cornerstone of Rolls-Royce global defence business,” said Nick Durham, President, Customer Business, UK and International Defence, Rolls-Royce, addressing a press conference in New Delhi recently. Adding that the company is now looking at how it would provide its customers more value for money.

Durham highlighted India’s role in the globalisation of the Rolls-Royce defence business, and spoke about the benefits of partnered support in the context of Rolls-Royce services strategy. He spoke at length about the company’s availability contracting for UK Ministry of Defence and how the company managed to help the government save costs by 50 per cent through its ‘Rocet’ and ‘PSOP’ maintenance support programmes for the RAF’s Tornado and Eurofighter fleets, respectively. Durham spoke about Rolls-Royce support to UK’s tanker aircraft programme as well, which is more than 60-year-old now and how greatly the entire effort was appreciated by the UK MoD/RAF, especially on the successful conclusion of the Libyan air campaign. “The company is now looking at setting up service delivery centres to help our defence customers,” he said.

Though the officials chose not to comment on the Indian Air Force (IAF) medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal, they spoke highly about the EJ200 in the Eurofighter Typhoon with the Royal Air Force (RAF). The company officials said that it has proven itself in the Libyan war, which, initially planned for 30 days actually lasted for eight months with tremendous increase in the flying effort. “The EJ200 met the high operational demands and surpassed 6,000 engine flying hours achieved over extended operational deployment with individual sorties lasting up to seven hours or more, without a single case of engine withdrawal”.

Replying to a question put by Jayant Baranwal, Editor-in-Chief, SP’s M.A.I., whether Rolls-Royce will help India, if it goes to war, Durham said, “It is always our intent to find a way to support our customers.”

On the offset clause, the officials said that they have no issues with it. “Rolls-Royce has great personal relationship with India since the last eight decades, an easy relationship, constantly evolving. The Defence Procurement Procedure today is not what it was earlier, it’s changed,” said John Gay, Director for Customer Business, South Asia, Rolls-Royce. Besides it’s more than 55-year-old partnership with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the company utilises engineering service centres in Bangalore launched with Quest in 2005 and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in 2010, and has a MoU with Larsen & Toubro, signed in 2010 to address civil nuclear opportunities globally. The service centres with TCS and Quest have more than 700 engineers, being provided expertise and skill development opportunities by Rolls-Royce.

On being asked to elaborate on the future collaborations with the IAF, the officials said, “We are discussing with them, explaining what we know and what we have. Nothing specific has been proposed.” Likewise, to a query raised by Jayant Baranwal as to what would the company prefer, the foreign military sales (FMS) or direct commercial sales (DCS) route, Durham said, “That’s not our business. It is the commercial arrangement that we have with the defence companies based on our capability and relationship.”

The officials also spoke about the MissionCare agreements in place with the IAF for the AE2100 and AE3007 engines installed on its C-130J and Embraer Legacy aircraft, respectively. He said that the company’s service solutions are now extending beyond propulsion system into engine capability provision and platform management. Speaking about the milestones achieved by the company in 2011, the officials spoke about their involvement in Eurofighter Typhoon, C-130J, C-127J, Global Hawks, etc. On the Indo-Rolls Royce cooperation front, the latest milestone achievement was the groundbreaking ceremony last month in December 2011 for the construction of a new manufacturing facility in Bangalore to produce components for the Rolls-Royce Trent family of civil aero engines. The state-of-the-art facility is owned by the International Aerospace Manufacturing Private Limited (IAMPL), a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and HAL formed in 2010. Scheduled to start production in 2012-13, IAMPL will incorporate the latest Rolls-Royce manufacturing techniques and will be developed as a ‘Centre of Excellence’ with worldwide use of its products.