Turkey initiates life cycle management platform and product qualification process domestically

The Turkish Defence Industry Life Cycle Management Platform (TSSÖDYP) was established under the umbrella of Turkey's Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) with the participation of all relevant stakeholders, said the main procurement agency in a press release on 26 August.

The platform aims to disseminate the System Life Cycle Management principles and practices in Turkey, which deal with the phases of determining the need for defence and security systems, procurement, use, support, and removal of the systems from the inventory as a whole, SSB head Ismail Demir said.

It also aims to reach a consensus of understanding among all the stakeholders that make up the defence and security ecosystem in the execution of defence programmes/projects, he added.

SSB has released a document of guidelines to this end. Separately, SSB initiated qualification of defence products in accordance with national standards.

Hence, Defence Industry Qualified Product List Programme was launched and introduced on 19 August at the International Defence Industry Fair in Istanbul.

TRtest Test and Evaluation company, created to meet the testing needs of domestic manufacturers and institutions, especially the defence industry, and affiliated to the SSB, will run the project.

The programme is intended to accelerate the localisation processes by ensuring that Turkey's national defence products are qualified according to the national standards with domestic facilities.

At present, companies that develop products at subsystem or component level have to have all or part of the testing and verification processes of their products performed by foreign accredited institutions to obtain the conformity certificates of foreign equivalent products due to technical requirements in some cases, and that prolongs the processes and increases costs, Demir said.