Fast Automation’s founder is David Askew.
Although David is a proud to be an Australian Citizen, he was raised on a farm in the North East of England. He left the UK after graduating from university with an Honours degree in both digital systems and management. Keen to see the world, he backpacked through Asia and ended up in Australia. “I was broke and quickly learnt to swallow my pride and work hard, turning my hand to manual labour to earn a living” said David. After cleaning toilets, picking fruit, serving food in canteens and other menial jobs, David finally got a job at a Control Systems company in Sydney Australia.
There, David got to program PLCs and do some high level SCADA programming. He “Loved It.” After leaving this controls company, David landed a contract to manage software development for a global pharmaceutical company. “I enjoyed the quality and documentation aspects of developing software that is used for critical applications, such as the preparation of Human Injectable Solutions. More importantly, I was lucky enough to work with some of the finest engineers in the world.”
Fast Automation grew from there. They were awarded an enviable contract for a Gas Automation project with a large Company. This quickly became a number of projects all over Australia and overseas. Around that time Fast Automation also moved into contracting for a number of high value assignments, one of which was an $80m Explosives Detection and Tracking project at Sydney Airport for Siemens.
“Things went from strength to strength. A number of excellent engineers that I worked with joined me and we built our client base from there. Customers moved on to different companies, and came to us with new projects and opportunities plus Siemens stopped operating in Baggage Handling and the Airports became clients directly,”
Fast Automation saw limitations with Panel Builders and Electrical Installation groups.
“They were either prohibitively expensive or not able to meet our specialised market’s requirements” advised David. Fast Automation Electrical was formed to build control panels and perform electrical installs to the same high standards they apply to software development. Fast Automation has an ISO 9001 certified, 330 square meter panel building workshop, together with a host of automated tools for rapid and efficient manufacture of the highest quality control systems.
David believes that reputation and recognition is a key factor in Fast Automation’s success: “Everyone wants recognition for what they do. I find it very satisfying to be able to say that right now after 18 years in business, we have significant projects with the original Pharmaceutical company, the first Gas company, Sydney Airport and of course many others! This is entirely due to the highly driven and skilled individuals that make up Fast Automation”
Fast Automation continues to seek out new challenges and exciting opportunities. In a rapidly changing marketplace, and economy, they are always progressing and learning at the forefront of automation. Please accept this capability document and do not hesitate to make contact if you think Fast Automation can be of service in any way.