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Defense Industries Organization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Defense Industries Organization (DIO), (Iranian name: Sasadjah (Sazemane Sanaye Defa)), is a conglomerate of state run Iranian companies whose function is to provide Iran with the necessary military manufacturing capacity and technical abilities. In recent years the DIO has attempted to become export orientated allowing Iran to become an exporter of weapons.
Prior to 1963 Iran's military industry consisted of a number of independent factories. In an early effort to overhaul Irans military capabilities, Mohammad Reza Shah ordered the creation of the Military Industries Organization (MIO). Operating as a branch of the Ministry of War, the MIO was to oversee all military related production within Iran. Over the next fifteen years, military plants produced small arms ammunition, batteries, tires, copper products, explosives, and mortar rounds and fuses. They also produced rifles and machine guns under West German license. In addition, helicopters, jeeps, trucks, and trailers were assembled from imported kits in attempts to transfer technical knowledge to Iran. Additionally, the organisation was charged with research and development and took the initiative in reverse engineering a number of Soviet RPG-7, BM21, and SAM-7 missiles in 1979. [1]
The Iranian Revolution halted all the military activities of the MIO. Plagued by the upheavals of the time the MIO was left unable to operate without foreign specialists and technicians; by 1981 it had lost much of its management ability and control over its industrial facilities [2].
The outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980 and the Western arms embargo served as a massive catalyst for the MIO to re-organise its operations. In late 1981, the new revolutionary government of Iran brought together the now disorganised sections of the MIO and placed them under the Defense Industries Organization (DIO). The DIO would from this point onwards supervise all production, research and development.
In 1987, the DIO was governed by a mixed civilian-military board of directors and a managing director responsible for the actual management and planning activities. Although the DIO director was accountable to the deputy minister of defense for logistics, Iran's president, in his capacity as the chairman of the SDC, had ultimate responsibility for all DIO operations.
Today, the DIO has more than 35,000 employees, 30% of whom are university graduates. It is also the key organisation driving Iran's significant military industry.