Boeing Co. has made an internal venture capital investment in an unmanned submarine project stemming from its Anaheim operation.
The company has provided an undisclosed sum for the submarine idea, which came out of Boeing’s Space & Communications unit in Anaheim. The site has a division that works on an unmanned underwater vehicle program,the Long-term Mine Reconnaissance System,for the Navy.
Last September, Seattle-based Boeing started the Chairman’s Innovation Initiative to encourage employees to bring forth ideas for new products or business lines. The company put together a $200 million fund that it hopes to distribute over the next five years.
“We have a lot of bright employees with a lot of good ideas,” said Walt Rice, a Boeing spokesman.
Boeing spokeswoman Amanda Landers said, “Our chief executive launched this initiative to inspire people to come up with ideas and revitalize the entrepreneurial culture in the company.”
Boeing has been investing in new ideas and technologies for decades, and the capital program formalizes the process. After an employee comes up with an idea, they can file an application to the Ventures Group. Company officials said Boeing has received hundreds of applications and has provided seed money to 70 projects.
The newly funded Anaheim group, not yet named, expects to produce an unmanned underwater vehicle for use by oil, gas and telecommunications companies. Oil and gas companies need detailed maps of the sea floor before they can begin drilling. Boeing hopes telecommunications companies can use the vehicle to find the best routes to lay undersea cable.
Current vehicles used must be tethered to a surface ship, limiting mobility and speed of the mapping process. The depth they can travel also limits tethered vehicles.
Boeing projects annual revenue from the new venture could be in the tens of millions. There currently are about 400 tethered vehicles being used, which Landers said is up from 10 in the 1970s. Services last year by those vehicles topped out at $750 million, she said.
The company does not have any takers on the new product yet, but Landers said the company already presented the project to ExxonMobile Corp., BP Amoco PLC and another oil company.
Boeing expects to run a sea test later this year in the Gulf of Mexico and expects to start offering the product in 2002.
Boeing is partnering with other companies to get the project off the ground. Houston-based Oceaneering International Inc. is providing the surface ship, equipment and launch and recovery services. Netherlands-based Fugro GeoServices Inc. will handle the payload and data technologies.
Landers said the technology group for the product came to Boeing when it acquired Rockwell International Corp. in 1996. n
