• Expanded our labour hire team
• Added a number of new mine sites to our client base
• Upgraded our Townsville workshop facilities
• Expanded our Cairns business units
• Added a water cutter facility to our Townsville business.

For further details on any of our business endeavours, please contact our Cairns and Townsville offices.

Dawsons Expanding at GEMCO
November 2008

Dawsons Engineering was recently awarded the balance of the Stage 1 work packages for the Groote Eylandt Expansion Project. The incremental expansion of the Groote Eylandt concentrator is aimed at increasing the processing capacity of the plant, to 4.0 Mt per annum, by removing bottlenecks from the existing layout. Packages awarded to Dawsons cover the demolition of the concentrator floor, installation of the new feed hopper, construction of the new cyclone building, installation of the new drum scrubber, screens and associated conveyors and the installation of two 15 tonne overhead gantry cranes.

"This is an excellent endorsement of Dawsons track record of providing a quality service to GEMCO." says Dawsons Project Manager, Bernie Dalton. "I believe it’s recognition of our both our service to GEMCO to date as much as our proven ability on other projects that has gotten us over the line with this contract." Work on Stage 1 will see Dawsons Expansion workforce peak at around 100 personnel on site, with the bulk of the workforce being sourced from the Cairns district, but from as far away as South East QLD.

Dawsons are working closely with the other contractors involved on the project to deliver a quality result for their client. "It’s essential that we develop good working relationships with the other contractors" says Bernie Dalton. "We have always had a very collaborative working culture at Dawsons, and it’s important to the success of any job in a remote area to be able to cooperate with others to share resources." There’s quite a team on this project, with HATCH the EPCM Contractors, JMS taking care of the Civils and Downer doing the Electrical.

Dawsons have been on site at Groote Eylandt for five years in December and believe that it is their experience with the working conditions on the Eylandt and their intimate knowledge of GEMCO’s site requirements that ensure they deliver to their client’s expectations. "Though we have been working in the mining industry of remote North West Queensland for 20 years now, each site is unique in its requirements and culture" commented Dawsons Sales and Labour Hire Manager, Sharon Dawson "we really try hard to ensure that we develop a thorough understanding of each site so that we can select our workforce accordingly."

Red Bluff Stairway

Dawsons Construction Crew Find Their Pioneering Spirit
September 2008

Dawsons Construction Crew is celebrating the completion of one of their most challenging projects to date. The brief by their client Queensland Parks and Wildlife was to fabricate and install a 40m long steel walkway to facilitate the safe crossing of the Cairns Kuranda train line at Red Bluff. The project presented many technical, logistical and environmental challenges, which the Dawsons crew met with relish.

On their "wish list" for five years waiting for the finalisation of design and method elements, QPWS were excited by the willingness and "can do" attitude of the Dawsons team, led by Foreman Darren Creber. "It gave our blokes a real appreciation of the amazing feat of construction of the original railway" said Darren. "We had no vehicular access to the site, water was 150m away, and all the footings were dug by hand. But none of that really compares to the original construction 120 years ago which took 9 years to build 15 hand made tunnels and 37 bridges and saw men lose their lives."

The project took four weeks to complete, with the steel being fabricated in Dawsons Cairns workshop in sections small enough to be manually positioned. Queensland Rail assisted with the transportation of the steel to the site.

Footings were all dug the "old fashioned" way and the concrete for the footings was transported down the 60° slope in a specially fabricated chute. "The crew were justifiably proud of their work on this project" says Darren, "we all walked away with a real sense of achievement. And it’s the variety of the work that we enjoy, the guys might be working on a house build one week and the next we’re working on a project like this that tests our problem solving ability and initiative. It keeps our trade skills fresh."

The challenges of this project were more than compensated for by the spectacular view from the workplace. The crew were working in pristine Cairns winter weather - daily temps of 27°C and enjoyed magnificent views of Cairns out to Green Island. Though there were limited wildlife spottings, the occasional adventurous tourist made their way along the existing walking track that links Stoney Creek at Kamerunga with Kuranda.

Steve Pearce and Mark Sibly of BHPBilliton Cannington and Bernie Dalton and Sharon Dawson of Dawsons Engineering

Cannington Contract Win
August 2008

BHP Billiton has extended their partnership with Dawsons Engineering in the new Infrastructure Maintenance contract at Cannington Mine.

"Dawsons will be delivering maintenance and project support to non production assets on site at Cannington Mine and Yurbi Rail Head Facility" said Dawsons Operations Manager, Bernie Dalton. "It’s a good extension of services to a site where Dawsons have been providing shutdown, labour hire and project support for many years." The new contract will allow Dawsons ample room for growth in employment, training and service delivery both on and off site. "We have an extended opportunity here to utilise our Cairns and Townsville workshops to provide additional labour hire and technical support. It means greater communication and assistance for the on site Infrastructure Maintenance Crew as well as the broader BHP Billiton network", says Sharon Dawson, Sales and Labour Hire Manager.

"We had an overwhelming response to the employment opportunities associated with this contract," commented Sharon. "We advertised in Cairns and Townsville and were really impressed by both the number and the very high standard of applicants. We put it down to a combination of factors - an indication of the attraction of this type of work, the mine site and Dawsons’ presence in the industry."

Currently, Dawsons have mobilised two, alternating Site Services Crews to Cannington and will be developing more employment opportunities for local skilled tradesman. "Cannington is a large mine site and the Dawsons Contract provides maintenance services to underground and surface facilities, For example, yesterday we were 450 metres underground working on Plumbing and Carpentry projects. It’s these kind of conditions that will keep us on our toes and increase the job possibilities on site," says Bernie Dalton. As Operations Manager, Bernie will be in constant contact with the on site supervisors and will also conduct monthly visits. "Dawsons places a strong emphasis on maintaining regular communications between Head Office and Site staff to ensure that we build a team mentality to achieve a successful outcome for the project"

Sharon Dawson maintains that it’s the ‘one-stop’ nature of Dawsons Engineering that continually gets a response from the clients. Dawsons can deliver a project from start to finish, anywhere in the country and supply the labour and support services for the lifetime of the project. She believes that those skills "…along with our quality craftsmanship and service delivery, make a pretty tough combination to beat."

No such thing as an impossible cut

The Waterjet profile cutting machine installed at the Townsville workshop of Dawsons Engineering has proven to be a versatile and popular method of cutting materials that had previously been difficult or impossible to cut using conventional technology.

The Waterjet can cut almost any material, with material thickness ranging from sheet and plate, to cast billets. The thickest cut so far measured more than 150mm.

Industrial clients report that items cut using the Waterjet, such as stainless steel, mild steel, copper, aluminium, brass, bisalloy and tool steel, are cut to far finer tolerances than conventional means allow.

In addition, no heat means that the parts are not affected by discolouration and the material properties are unchanged. Because the finished edge surfaces are usually ready for use they can be installed or welded into place with no further clean-up necessary.

The Waterjet is an industrial robot, controlled by sophisticated computerisation and state-of-the-art servo-electric motors and drives. The precision of tolerances to plus or minus 0.1mm, and a kerf width (width of the cut) that can be set at less than 1mm, means that almost any shape can be produced, no matter how intricate.

If you can imagine the design and sketch it, it can be made, and waste is kept to an absolute minimum. The beating heart of the Waterjet is a massive electric powered pump that delivers incredibly small amounts of water at extremely high pressure, up to 400,000kpa or 60,000psi. The high pressure water stream is focussed via a diamond orifice and is directed onto the material to be cut.