Australian Defence Apparel steps up supply chain security

Military and law enforcement uniform and equipment manufacturer Australian Defence Apparel (ADA) is expanding their existing membership of the Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) to cover their Bendigo, Victoria factory.

Once the membership is extended to their 5000sqm facility in Bendigo this year, ADA will be the only uniform manufacturer that has achieved DISP membership and proudly holds a membership across all levels.

The DISP provides a layer of protection for the Defence supply chain, allowing for improved resilience, security and assurance of sourcing. The programme operates across four levels – governance, personnel, physical and cybersecurity.

ADA is the country’s largest supplier of military and law enforcement uniforms and equipment, as well as supplying healthcare and numerous government and corporate customers.

Chief Technology Officer and CISO of ADA David Connors said: “This is a crucial element of ADA’s growth plan and is especially critical considering the current landscape whereby essential and highly classified data is often under threat.

“ADA ensures that we keep everything in-house – we don’t use managed service providers or external providers to host any of our critical systems.

“Data sovereignty is vital as well. We go through very rigid workflows around vetting any new IT platforms that we look to bring into the organisation to ensure we can check where the data is held, who has access to it, and how is it being held.”

The DISP membership provides confidence and assurance to Defence and other government entities that ADA understand the security requirements of the business, both physically protecting customer’s uniforms and cyber, including IP and the personal information of the customer’s employees.

ADA’s Governance and Risk Manager Narelle Dimopoulos said: “From a cybersecurity perspective, this membership ensures not only is the data of our employees safe, but also the data of our clients and customers.

“A large part of our business is our total apparel management system (TAMS) offering, whereby we provide a personalised B2B contemporary online ordering platform.

“This allows clients to access a unique and secure ordering hub personalised to their requirements, to make purchases and track their orders.

“A seamless user experience, whilst maintaining the highest degree of data security and privacy is our utmost priority.”

Picture: Australian Defence Apparel