Father of 'Pit Stop' Engineering Joins Raytheon IBCS Team

(Tewksbury, Mass., April 10, 2008) -- An engineering design consulting firm born in the split-second world of Formula One and NASCAR racing is bringing its unique expertise to the Raytheon Company-led (NYSE: RTN) Team Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS).

Carlson Technology, led by founder Dennis Carlson, is known for its "pit stop" technology and unique design elements including "tool-less" maintenance, rapid repair and replace, modular design and a "first to ninety-ninth percentile" soldier ergonomics design. Carlson joins other key team members collaborating on the IBCS proposal including General Dynamics, IBM, Teledyne Brown Engineering and Davidson Technologies.

Team IBCS recently completed its proposal for the three-phase IBCS program, which is a U.S. Army and joint development program with a modular, open architecture, system-of-systems construct allowing warfighters to use any sensor and any shooter within an integrated fire control network.

Carlson's unique "pit stop" engineering began in the early 1980s when he invented the "cool suit" for race car drivers. The compact, lightweight cooling system, incorporating space-age thermoelectric modules, was a tremendous success and considered revolutionary for the racing industry. Using the same rapid pit stop mentality, this success encouraged Carlson to branch out into engineering techniques and tactics known for smaller and lighter modules, enabling modular component replacement without any tools in fewer than 10 seconds.

Carlson Technology has won numerous industry and Department of Defense design awards. In addition, Carlson has also served on the Army Science Board and continues to provide design recommendations to the Army for its Future Combat Systems.

"Dennis Carlson brings an innovative, 'soldier first' design perspective that permeates our entire proposal. It addresses soldier physical needs and constraints early in the design - and transcends to cognitive considerations and affordable produceability as well," said Dan Kirby, Raytheon's director of JFires/System of Systems and leader of Team IBCS.

"It was easy to join a team that we had worked so successfully with in the past," Carlson said. "I hope we can push the edge on IBCS and attain similar recognition such as the Gold Award in BusinessWeek magazine's Annual Design Review and the DoD David Packard Acquisition Excellence Award for Logistics that were achieved on prior projects."

Source : Raytheon

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