Austin Engineering (ASX:ANG) today is a world leader in the engineering and fabrication of products for the mining, aluminium and industrial sectors.

The company was originally founded in 1982 by Ron and Gloria Austin and has been at its current location at the Carole Park Industrial Estate, 20kms west of Brisbane’s CBD, since 1991. After a period of growth and expansion Austin was acquired by West Australian Metals Ltd in 2003.  The company floated on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2004 and subsequently acquired the assets and business of the Perth-based John’s Engineering & Cranes (JEC) Pty Ltd later that year.

In April 2006 Austin acquired Kaldura Industries, a heavy engineering business located at Mackay in Central Queensland. The rationale behind the acquisition was to have a regional facility that specialised in mining equipment and repairs to complement the fabrication facilities in Brisbane and provides the company with a significant capacity to provide fabrication and equipment repair services to the resources industry around the Bowen Basin.

In 2007, Austin also acquired two other businesses, another in Central Queensland – Austbore Pty Ltd located in Mackay, and Western Technology Services based in Casper, Wyoming USA. Austbore’s core capabilities include general machining services, the overhaul of track frames and other mining equipment and mobile line-boring services.

Western Technology Services, or Westech, is the world's largest non-OEM designer and manufacturer of off highway dump truck bodies. Westech also supplies equipment to the Canadian Tar Sands Region and other North American mines from its Casper base. Since its acquisition of Westech, Austin has enjoyed a considerable interest in the company’s light-weight dump truck bodies, particularly in Western Australia.

In mid 2009 Austin acquired the steel dump truck body business from Conymet Ltda based in the industrial precinct of La Negra in Antofagasta, Chile’s largest mining region. Conymet has a 25-year history in truck body design, manufacturing large mining equipment and providing services to the large Chilean mining Industry. Austin will expand that base with JEC Mining Products and Westech truck bodies.

In 2010 Austin acquired WA based Pilbara Hire Group Pty Ltd. This specialist site based company offers fixed and mobile repair and maintenance services and complements Austin’s Westech and JEC products.

As a result of its acquisitions and expansion activity The Austin Group now has a total land area over 20 hectares, modern high-bay workshops covering a total enclosed factory area of 62,000m2 serviced by 20 overhead travelling cranes up to 50 tonnes capacity. The company employs over 550 people with a combined annual turnover of $AUD180 million.