GXO has joined forces with Amentum, Accenture and Maersk to support the UK defence sector.
The alliance, known as the Torus Defence Supply Chain, aims to help strengthen the future of the UK defence sector.
As part of the alliance, GXO’s brief is to develop and operate innovative logistics solutions, leveraging its experience partnering with aerospace and defence organisations.
GXO recently bolstered its UK defence capabilities through the acquisition of Wincanton, a longstanding partner to the UK defence and industrial sector.
GXO currently employs more than 60,000 team members across 450 sites in the UK and is a Gold Award level member of the UK’s Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) for its work with the armed forces.
Torus has a brief to provide resilient, agile and integrated defence supply chain solutions, helping the UK defence sector adapt to build the agile capacity required to enhance sovereign capability.
Designed to help address the UK government policy shift to readiness, visibility and data exploitation, Torus draws on alliance members’ proven capabilities and mission-critical expertise in military domain, procurement and supply chain. The alliance is underpinned by a shared commitment of collaboration, compliance and continuous improvement to solve complex challenges in the UK defence market.
Fellow alliance member Amentum will provide overall integration and programme management based on more than 60 years of support to UK defence operations, procurement, logistics support, programme/project delivery and transformation.
Its global expertise, built over decades of defence, aerospace and national security experience in the USA and UK, bringing interoperability with allied sustainment systems and proven global buying power. Last September, Amentum announced plans to add another 3,000 people to its current UK workforce of more than 6,000 over the next four years.
Accenture will lead digital reinvention with a core role to deliver digital enablement and integrated decision support capability. Accenture’s experience of defence logistics information systems and digital transformation will enable real-time, single-version-of-the-truth visibility and smarter, data and AI-powered decision making that balance readiness, cost and resilience.
Maersk will provide global integrated movement solutions using its extensive network across multiple modes to enable global reach ensuring compliance with stringent security standards for defence and government cargo whilst ensuring the scale of its owned assets provide agility and resilience to allow defence to plan and react to a changing need.
Gavin Williams, GXO UK & Ireland MD, said: “The defence sector is tasked with responding to dynamic global challenges which has created substantial demands on its supply chains.
“GXO’s proven capability in the global defence sector optimises efficiency and builds resilience in complex supply chains, providing leading defence organisations with the assurance they will have the adaptive capacity required to deliver with confidence.”
Loren Jones, Amentum senior vice president, added: “Our combined global reach and military domain experience, specifically Amentum’s proven success in deployed logistics and integrating complex systems for the US Government, perfectly aligns with the UK Defence sector’s requirement for future operational resilience and it’s imperative to move beyond systems optimised for just-in-time to ones of assured readiness and global reach.”
Mark Smith, Accenture EMEA defence lead, commented: “This alliance brings together unmatched expertise in logistics systems and data-driven digital transformation - enabling scalable, interoperable solutions that enhance mission readiness.
“Accenture’s deep defence logistics knowledge and cutting-edge digital capabilities, refined through working with over 20 NATO countries, can help ensure operational continuity and resilience in complex global environments.”
