Smiths Detection wins two major DoD contracts

Published 28 March 2007

Chemical detection units earn $19 million for this industry heavyweight; Air Force spends $4.5 million on advanced hazmat identification equipment

More good news for industry heavyweight Smiths Detection. As thorough readers will recall, the company has had a strong couple of months already, signing a joint venture with General Electric and signing a research deal with Birmingham University to work on ion mobility spectrometery (IMS) technology. Now Smiths has two new contracts to announce: a $19.25 million agreement with the Department of Defense to provide 4,100 Improved Chemical Agent Monitor (ICAM) units; and three contracts totalling $4.5 million to provide the U.S. Air Force with advanced hazmat identification equipment.

The ICAM contract is actually the company’s second such deal with DoD, the first one being a $9.5 million agreement awarded in June 2006. “ICAM clearly meets the DoD’s requirement for a highly advanced hand-held chemical warfare agent monitor that can quickly confirm the presence or absence of contamination by these lethal agents,” said executive Stephen Phipson. As for the Air Force contracts — which, we should mention, represent one quarter of the Air Force’s ongoing deployment — include the provisioning of the portable chemical identification system known as HazMatID, portable chemical identifiers, and APD 2000 chemical detection systems. “The combination of our two advanced technology products provides the U.S. Air Force’s emergency responders with a wide range of detection capabilities for potentially hazardous chemicals,” Phipson explained.