Defence Recognised Supplier TC Communications (TC) took out a top honour last year, with the New South Wales Government recognising the company for global excellence and naming it the number one small to medium enterprise in its industry awards.

TC Chief Executive Officer Todd McDonell highlighted to On Target some of the contributing factors that he believes led to the recognition of a satellite communications company that designs, implements, installs and supplies bespoke satellite communication systems; ranging from small hand held satellite phones through to fully encrypted networks and live video surveillance capabilities.

He said the first aspect that differentiates TC from other communications suppliers is its Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) service.

‘Customers have access to a 24 hour, seven day a week engineering help desk for satellite communications systems,’ he said.

‘The help desk is a rostered service staffed by field and in-house engineers with appropriate experience in satellite terminal hardware, information technology equipment, and mobile satellite networks.

‘One of the key benefits to customers of this support is that we are able to deploy engineering resources immediately in order to solve their problems. We can have a field engineer anywhere in the world on 48 hours notice. Indeed, in recent times we have deployed staff to Malta, Dubai, Solomon Islands, Bougainville, Papua New Guniea, Timor and the Persian Gulf well within this timeframe.

‘We began offering ILS three years ago and are the only satellite communications company in Australia providing this service,’ Mr McDonell said.

He said that the company’s specialisation has enabled it to get direct contracts with Defence, with the first contract won in the late 1990s. The Australian Defence Force currently has a direct contract with TC for its ILS service.

Another factor Mr McDonell associates with TC’s success is its ISO 9001:2000 accreditation.

To attain the accreditation the company has to conform to international standards of quality management set by the International Organisation for Standardisation and demonstrate an ability to consistently provide products that meet customer and applicable regulatory requirements.

Mr McDonell said Defence recently audited TC Communications to independently check compliance with the standard and gave the company an 89 per cent rating.

‘This was the first time we had been audited and we are now in the database as a quality certified supplier,’ he said.

‘ISO 9001:2000 enables us to operate like a much bigger business. When a team of our guys need to go and do something the quality system can show them how to complete a task rather than requiring another person to show them.’

A requirement of gaining ISO 9001:2000 certification is the ability to continually improve processes.

Mr McDonell said, ‘we have created a system called “A Better Idea or ABI”. When procedures in ISO are not working as well as they should or a member of our team comes up with a better way to do something, they create an ABI, this is then reviewed and can be implement across the organisation.’

The final factor he pointed out was continual innovation. ‘We always have something in development. We have just created a Secure Communications Box that will allow its user to drop into any location and have immediate secure communications,’ he said.

‘By providing home country reliability partnered with specialised, hi tech communications skills, we have become the trusted provider of remote communications solutions to the Defence and Civil Defence market,’ Mr McDonell said.