Back in 2009, when asked at the sod turning what work the company would have to pay for its facility in Henderson, Civmec Construction and Engineering CEO Peter Tallon said simply: “None”

He and his business partners had decided to build a sprawling facility to the south of Perth with 120,000sq.m of factory space because they felt the work would come.

Come it did.

Civmec counts major resources players such as Woodside, Chevron, Apache, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto among its clientele.

A quick walk through the cavernous workshop shows work in progress for a virtual who’s who of the big end of resource town.

Technology and innovation are buzzwords thrown out regularly about what is needed for Australian businesses to compete against less expensive producers in Asia.

Well, it seems the people at Civmec are taking that to heart. In a two-year period it was noticeable how certain things had changed as the management tried to make the operations more efficient.

As was pointed out, the company’s main competitor was China, which competed by throwing people at its problems. Civmec could not take that tack so it has had to be as innovative as possible to compete.

How things have changed since that speculative sod turning in 2009 when then WA treasurer Troy Buswell drove down to preside over the ceremonies.

One of the projects that gave Tallon and his business partners the idea to go ahead with the ambitious undertaking – Gorgon – is about 80% complete.

Also, Civmec has become a public company, courtesy of its 2012 listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Tallon said the office facility was designed to cater for the company’s present needs as well as its future ones.

The ground floor of the facility has a training room – Civmec has become a registered training organisation – and a first aid facility that can do all of the medical checks its workers will need.

It also has offices for clients who need to be onsite to supervise parts of the builds Civmec may be carrying out on their behalf.

The first floor houses the main reception area as well as housing the company’s business functions such as its accounting, human resources and information technology teams.

That level also has meeting rooms.

Level two houses the executive office suites and the project teams that are either designing projects or managing jobs on remote sites.

The top level is bare at this stage but Tallon says it has room for another 100 employees.

All up the facility can house 450 employees.

WA Premier Colin Barnett said Civmec stood out to him as a very entrepreneurial company.

“It’s an entrepreneurial company that makes big and bold decisions,” he said.

Barnett said one of the problems WA business faced was in getting a large enough share of the work on the massive resources projects that were being built in the state.

“It’s a constant battle to win large shares of the work but I think we’re doing well,” he said.