Advanced Technology Institute awarded $99M Navy contract

The Office of Naval Research has awarded North Charleston-based Advanced Technology Institute a $99 million, five-year contract to develop and implement shipbuilding-related manufacturing technologies.

This is the second time Advanced Technology Institute, a division of the S.C. Research Authority, has secured the award. SCRA runs two of the federal government’s nine Navy ManTech Centers of Excellence, which focus on specific manufacturing technology areas.

In North Charleston, about 30 employees are responsible for this maritime-related work, SCRA chief executive Bill Mahoney said.

The authority also manages a Composites Manufacturing Technology Center located in Anderson.

Mahoney said SCRA competed with an institution in New Orleans in its bid to operate the Center for Naval Shipbuilding Technology.

“It’s great to prevail in a recompete,” Mahoney said.

The authority wooed the Navy away from the same group in New Orleans five years ago, he said. SCRA was announced as the winner last week.

SCRA’s Advanced Technology Institute division works to understand the requirements of the Navy and then to identify, develop and test new solutions aimed at cost savings and efficiency in operations.

“What we do ranges from implementing new welding techniques all the way up to the creation of a robotic-driven automated weapons assembly system,” Mahoney said.

The latter project is one that ATI is currently testing. It was crafted through a joint project with BAE Systems, a defense contractor also in North Charleston. The product is a dolly-like system for moving weapons from below deck to the flight deck. It allows for more rapid movement of weapons and requires less labor for the same job, Mahoney said.

“As they say in the lab, it’s pretty neat stuff,” Mahoney said of the projects.

The organization works with several private partners in its ventures, including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, Mahoney said.