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From factory floor to firing line: Canberra's Boresight puts Australian manufacturing back on the map

JMM

Key Facts:

Boresight designs and builds its products in Fyshwick, ACT, Australia, a model that challenges the accepted wisdom that sophisticated manufacturing cannot survive here.

A new generation of sovereign-focused defence manufacturers is emerging

Boresight has become one of the Western Hemisphere's leading suppliers of small target uncrewed aerial systems, serving 11 Western armed forces including all four US services.

Australian manufacturing has fallen from roughly 30% of GDP in the 1960s to around 5% today, one of the steepest industrial declines of any developed nation.

For half a century, Australia has been content to watch its factories go quiet. A hollowing-out that claimed some of the nation's most iconic industries and companies along the way. 

Hoo roo Holden. Farewell Ford. Catch you later Kelvinator.

The losses are well known and still sting. 

Which is what makes this small company in a Fyshwick industrial estate so remarkable. 

Boresight, headquartered in Canberra, has developed a fully integrated aerial target drone ecosystem. The system is designed and manufactured on home soil and supplies military customers across Australasia, North America, Europe and the Middle East.

"The most exciting thing to me is the opportunities for Australian industry. Boresight is really changing some paradigms about what Australian industry can do,” says Justin Olde, Managing Director. 

For a nation that forgot how to make things, it is a striking proof of concept: sovereign manufacturing, done right, can compete anywhere in the world.

“The impression of the Australian defence industry is that we're too small and haven't had the capacity to do things here in Australia, certainly not as a competitive, high-volume, low-cost manufacturer. What Boresight is proving is that's actually false. Australia can be a highly competitive, high-volume, low-cost manufacturer,” Olde says. 

Australia still manufactures some things, medical devices, food processing, specialised mining equipment, defence electronics. 

But Boresight represents something more urgent: a model for what sovereign, high-technology production can look like when a company refuses to accept the old excuses.

“Frankly, it's a lot of fun to be at the helm of a company that is growing and doing what we're doing,” says Olde.

About us:

Boresight delivers an integrated aerial target drone ecosystem that enables realistic counter-UAS training and testing for defence forces. The company’s systems combine attritable aerial target drones, mission planning software and scalable ground control systems to support threat emulation and operational readiness. 

Boresight’s platform range includes quadrotor and fixed-wing aerial targets designed to replicate evolving drone threats and enable repeatable training scenarios without risking high-value ISR assets. 

With teams in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, Boresight supports defence partners globally with scalable training infrastructure and integrated engineering and production capability.

Contact details:

Boresight | Managing Director, Justin Olde, E: [email protected]

Jane Morgan Management | Investor and Media Relations, Wilamina Russo, M: 0450 646 609