The 121st meeting of the Committee of Defense Industries and Services (Comité de Industrias y Servicios para la Defensa: CISD) of the Spanish Quality Association (Asociación Española para la Calidad: AEC) was held on 20 February last, with the participation of the Industrial Inspections Area (Área de Inspecciones Industriales: AII) of the Spanish MoD’s Directorate General of Armaments and Materials (Dirección General de Armamento y Material: DGAM) and the attendance of GMV.

Other keynote participants were Félix Pablo Torres, CISD president; Arturo Navarra, from the Subdirectorate General of Inspection, Regulation and Industrial Strategy (Subdirección General de Inspección, Regulación y Estrategia Industrial de Defensa), members of CISD’s governing board and representatives from Spain’s defense industry. The meeting venue was the Seville headquarters of General.

Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS), site of the manufacture and assembly of the VCR 8x8 Dragon vehicles, for which GMV is supplying three of the onboard systems: the Shotting Detection System, the Navigation System and the Command and Control (C2) System for the vehicles, which serve as the communications interface with the new Dismounted Soldier System (Sistema de Combatiente a Pie: SISCAP) being developed by GMV in a joint venture with Indra.
This CISD plenary session presented the reports on the various working groups while also setting out the committee’s next goals and objectives. A section was also given over to MoD representatives’ reports on the current state of the new versions of NATO’s AQAP quality-assurance standards.

The meeting also took in a guided tour of armored-vehicle factory of GDELS-Santa Bárbara Sistemas to check out the activity, especially the assembly line of the VCR 8x8 Dragon and the British Army’s ASCOD (Austrian Spanish Cooperation Development) armored-vehicle family.

AEC serves as a meeting point where business partners get the chance to swap notes on current practices and upcoming challenges, making contact too with potential customers and government authorities. Boasting a total of 1700 members, AEC is broken down into several communities and committees to deal with each particular area and represent specific professional groups.