JOHN HEINE & SON PTY LTD Based in Sydney, Australia John Heine & Son Pty Ltd is a long established family owned engineering company. It is centred on a modern machine shop and ferrous foundry and makes a wide variety of products principally for the general engineering and mining industries. While much of its product is sold in Australia, a large proportion is exported. The company enjoys an excellent reputation in the market place for quality, reliability and competence. Historical The company was founded in 1886 by John Heine, an engineer who migrated from England. He built up a manufacturing company that gradually specialised in power presses and forming dies. It was the first company to make automatic can making machinery in Australia, commencing around 1890. The company quickly forged a reputation as Australia's foremost machinery manufacturer and over the years has produced tens of thousands of machines for Australian industry, as a visit today to almost any factory in Australia will reveal. Such is the strength and quality of these machines that most are still in service today. Whilst the company started exporting in the 1930's the last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in this activity with sales throughout SE Asia the main destination. Products The main types of machinery the company has produced includes metal stamping presses from 2 to 350 tonnes capacity, general sheet metal working machinery and can making machinery including 2 and 3 piece body makers, end presses and seamers.  The company manufactures a large range of die sets for metal stamping and also has a strong market in machine re-building. The foundry produces ferrous castings in many specifications from grey iron, nodular or SG iron, high Ni and high Cr wear resistant alloys, through to alloy steels and stainless steel. Components are produced for the mining industry in abrasive resistant irons.  The company also casts and machines slurry pumps in hard wearing chrome alloy irons. Around one quarter of the company's output is exported, mainly to the SE Asia area, but also to the America's, Africa and Europe.  Exports mainly focus on products for the mining industry, but are supplemented by cast and machined items and re-furbished John Heine brand machinery. Facilities Foundry The foundry handles captive work as well as a wide variety of castings for outside customers. An Inductotherm twin crucible induction furnace enables a wide variety of ferrous castings to be made up to about 15 tonnes in iron and 6 tonnes in steel. A state-of-the-art 60 ton per hour articulated arm mixer assists in rapid filling of large boxes.  Combined with spectrographic analysis facilities, rigid quality control is standard procedure. Machine Shop The machine shop is comprehensive and has capacity up to "medium" size. Quality and tolerances are constantly monitored by the metrology department, allowing quality control to ISO9001:2000 on casting and machining work. Full fitting and assembly facilities are also available. The machine shop has over 50 machine tools, including horizontal borers, CNC and conventional long bed mills, CNC machining centres, surface grinders, a slide way grinder, CNC and conventional vertical borers, CNC lathes, cylindrical and centreless grinders as well as standard lathes, mills and drills. Management The company employs around 100 staff and has a turnover of approx $A12m. The family, now in the fifth generation, is heavily involved in management. Most senior managers have an engineering background and their very practical approach to business has seen the company develop during difficult economic times. The organisation structure is very flat and there is extensive devolution of decision making to the shop floor as well as use of direct consultation, consultative committees and improvement teams.