Successful together.

When master mason Johann Hitthaller founded the company in 1907, he could not have foreseen that it would develop over the decades into a competent and versatile provider of construction services. Today, Hitthaller+Trixl is valued by customers and partners alike as an independent, success-driven company that is absolutely trustworthy and financially stable. Alongside its headquarters in Leoben, the company has branch offices in Graz, Kapfenberg, Linz, Trumau, Wels and Zirl. The master builder and engineer Peter Hitthaller, who was the 3rd generation of the family to be a managing partner up until 2012, is now chairman of the company's supervisory board, where he maintains a promising balance between tradition and modernity together with around 640 employees.

The company took an important step in expanding its civil engineering expertise in 2004 when it established an efficient asphalt and road construction department headed by Josef Ulbing, an expert with a long track record in the industry. An existing asphalt mixing plant was acquired to ensure that the company‘s own high quality standards were consistently maintained along the entire process chain.

The new line of business performed well, and, over the course of time, the vision of expanding the road construction business segment developed into the idea of erecting one of the most modern asphalt mixing plants in Austria. After around three years of planning, the project received the green light in August 2015 and was realized within a few months in partnership with the experts from BENNINGHOVEN.

In December 2015, work started on dismantling those parts of the old plant that were to be rebuilt by BENNINGHOVEN – the cold feed unit, a bitumen tank and the loading silo. These components were integrated into the concept for the new plant. The new plant was already placed into operation in the middle of April 2016. Josef Ulbing, Construction Manager for Asphalt and Road Construction at Hitthaller commented: “The inclusion of the existing components made the planning process rather complicated. But we were ably supported by BENNINGHOVEN all the way from submission of the bid through to the completion of the project, and the collaboration was constructive throughout.” To ensure the highest quality standards, Hitthaller invested in the very latest technologies, not least because they also wanted to take environmental concerns into account in all areas. Klaus Kohl, Head of Sales for BENNINGHOVEN at Wirtgen Österreich GmbH says: “The new asphalt mixing plant is a TBA 2000 from BENNINGHOVEN. Similar to Hitthaller+Trixel Baugesellschaft mbH, BENNINGHOVEN – founded in 1909 – can also look back on a long and rich tradition and has become a technological leader in the field of asphalt mixing plants over many decades. The TBA 2000 is configured with a 2-t mixer and a dual-fuel burner with bitumen-vapor afterburning. This technology is just as good for the environment as a particularly high-grade filtration unit. The possibility of adding RAP from Hitthaller's own road reclamation projects is another key aspect, with cold feeding accounting for as much as 30% of the plant‘s output.” He is proud to emphasize that the new asphalt mixing plant reduces emissions by more than 50% despite the increased mixing capacity.

Johannes Gmeiner, Managing Partner of Hitthaller+Trixl, emphasizes the plant's importance for the company's performance capabilities: “This extensive investment in the very latest production technology now enables us to produce asphaltic mixtures of every required quality, even for prestigious road construction projects. I would like to offer special thanks in this context to Wolfgang Steinerand Josef Ulbing. Together with Mr. Kohl at BENNINGHOVEN, they did a truly outstanding job of designing the plant right down to the tiniest detail and bringing it to fruition without any major complications. For us, road construction is a market of the future. This investment thus represents an important step in safeguarding the continued independence of the company.”

The asphaltic mixture from the new plant is largely used for the company‘s own projects. However, its possible uses go beyond pure road construction, since Hitthaller+Trixl Baugesellschaft mbH can now also make optimum use of the synergies within the company. These extend from the design of their structural engineering, general contractor and property development projects and the routing of power and telecommunications cables through to digging and installation work in municipal water and district heating pipeline construction.