Defence celebrate 1st birthday of the Defence + Industry ePortal

Wednesday, Jul 01, 2009

Greg Combet, Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science, today joined industry and Defence to celebrate the 1st birthday of the Defence + Industry ePortal, and its publicly searchable industry capability information system (ICIS).

The Internet site, www.dplusi.defence.gov.au now has over 1200 companies listed and in excess of 3520 registered users, and it is growing daily.

"The ePortal allows Australian defence companies to showcase their capabilities to Defence buyers and to multinational companies thereby facilitating Australian industry participation in global supply chains," Mr Combet said.

"On 1 July last year I launched the Defence and Industry ePortal to help gather data on the capabilities of Australian Industry to support the wide and varied needs of the Australian Defence Force.

"I am pleased to say that one year on, the site is starting to provide valuable information to assist decision makers both locally and overseas.

"The site continues to grow quickly with a further 100 companies currently in the process of adding their capability data onto the system. One of the pleasing results is that we are seeing companies previously not recognised within the defence industry able to advertise their skills and expertise.

"Externally hosted and supported by Fujitsu, the ePortal and ICIS will evolve further to allow registered users, including individuals, companies, industry associations and State and Local Governments to undertake regional searches and locate specific defence industry capabilities locally and Australia-wide.

"The business opportunities advertised through the ePortal bulletin board are already reaching a wide target audience. We are also helping small businesses to network electronically with prime contractors.

"We have already mapped the strategic industry capabilities outlined in the 2009 Defence White paper, and in the newly released Defence Capability Plan 2009, to the capability classifications in the ePortal and promulgated it to registered users on the ePortal," Mr Combet said.

Source: Australian Government