History and Timeline

Bossong Engineering was established by Steve and Janice Bossong. Our first Hitachi robot, affectionately called ‘Old Yella’, was purchased to provide contract welding services. Bossong  operated from  a 500 sqm premises in Maddington.

While initially work was agricultural based, we soon moved into the more active market of hard-facing of dredge teeth for mineral sands. This was soon followed by the manufacture of railway wagon components, conveyor parts, and servicing of oil field parts.

We wanted more hard facing business, but it was hard to even get an interview with Tronox (formerly Tiwest). One Christmas they needed urgent hard facing of teeth for their dredge. Steven scoffed his Christmas lunch and then worked day and night for a week, delivering stock to site every day. They were surprised at the speed of the turnaround, but it brought us loyal customers.

We researched and developed a machine to hard face elbows for a local alumina producer which weren’t able to be manufactured using available technology at the time. Simultaneously, a new subsea client needed the bore of 12m lengths of carbon steel pipe clad with stainless steel. We researched and created a system to achieve this where the current available technology could not.

We moved to new 1000 sqm premises in Canning Vale.

Our premises was expanded to 2000 sqm.

We won a purchase order to supply W.A. and QLD water pipe manufacturing plants with skids for a shipment to the Arab states. To ensure the supply of skids required, a Brisbane company was also awarded part of the work. Not only did Bossong exceeded requirements for the W.A. plant, we delivered 3 loads to QLD before our competition made a delivery.

We made a diesel engine exhaust manifold for a power station at Ranger Uranium Kakadu. As with most jobs we used AutoCad to create working drawings as often client’s drawings are not accurate enough for manufacture. Twelve years later we got a call asking if there were any working drawings as the part had worn out. In under an hour we provided our very happy clients with the archival drawings, enabling them to replace the part.

We purchased and built a 700 sqm factory and 300 sqm office next door to our existing premises.

We provided robot welded wagon sub-assemblies to a W.A. iron ore wagon manufacturer at a price and quality beyond their expectation. We had 8 robots and many staff working 2 shifts to manufacture the many components needed for more than 1500 wagons. This was followed by hundreds of steel and aluminium wheat wagons. We repeatedly demonstrated our capability to produce high-quality robot welded products at internationally competitive rates.

We expanded the building by another 600 sqm.

A W.A. nickel mine needed a coating to be created that would resist abrasion in a severe high-pressure acid leach environment. We researched and developed our own TINI surface conversion process, and the subsequent robotic application and machining techniques. We supplied pipe fittings, valve components, and agitator blades at a quality beyond the customer’s expectations.

We built a 5300 sqm factory and 1000 sqm office and amenities in Welshpool.

We researched, designed, and manufactured a shackle pin for a client’s Remotely Operated Vehicle operated 150T shackle for subsea installation. It was successfully deployed underwater beyond diver accessible depths. 3 years later, the engineer that knew of the first shackle called from Italy. Their new employer needed a similar shackle. We redesigned the shackle to suit, and then manufactured and delivered 6 in quick time to the customer’s base in Italy.

We extended our factory by another 720 sqm and added 3000 sqm of hardstand for storage.

The American Petroleum Institute awarded us with accreditation and quality assurance certification for the machining of API rotary tool joint connections. VAM & Tenaris followed with further accreditations.

We were asked to design and built a range of machines to separate sand and rock from drilling mud for offshore, remote, and underground applications. After successful completion of this project, our customer was award Innovator of the Year.

We were asked if we could provide bucking services at the port in Darwin. We designed and manufactured a platform to house our bucking unit with customised roller infeed systems and material handling capabilities for remote deployment – a truly mobile bucking unit. The machine was in operation in Broome 12 weeks later.