Northrop Grumman is touting its international military logistics operations, including in the Pacific Rim.

"With our Qantas Defense Services acquisition in late February, several key programs add greater value to Northrop Grumman's global portfolio and are now part of Integrated Defense Services under Northrop Grumman Australia," said Steve Hogan, sector vice president and general manager, integrated logistics and modernization division, Northrop Grumman Technical Services.

"The robust global logistics marketplace provides tremendous opportunities for Northrop Grumman to deliver differentiated value and top performance for our customers."

Hogan was speaking recently at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, where company experts noted that about 70 percent of the cost of a military system is in sustaining and modernizing the product over its life cycle.

Four years ago, the company created a new logistics architecture called Support Anywhere to enhance those service efforts.

"Our Support Anywhere logistics architecture brings together the people, processes and tools across all of Northrop Grumman to drive a higher level of mission execution and affordability across all of our customers' programs," said Northrop's John Patrick (J.P.) Batache, director, information technology, global logistics and operational support. "It's modular, scalable and flexible to meet needs of any program at any maturity level."

Global Combat Support System-Army is part of that effort. It's a web-based, logistics and finance system based upon commercial business practices to manage property, unit supply and ground maintenance activities.

The company also has deployed logistics support for unmanned vehicles used by the U.S. military, such as the Air Force' Global Hawk, the Navy's Fire Scout and the Army' Hunter.