The company was set up to continue shipbuilding at Hietalahti shipyard, after its predecessor Helsingfors Skeppsdocka, which operated the yard in 1865–1895, had bankrupted.

In 1935 Kone- ja Siltarakennus was taken over by Wärtsilä, which amalgamated Hietalahti Shipyard and Engineering Works into its own organisation.

The Hietalahti yard construction was started in 1865 by industrialist Adolf Törngren, who founded the company Helsingfors Skeppsdocka.

By the following year the new owner became Tampere Linen and Iron Industry, which still had to invest a substantial sum of money into buildings, a dock and machinery, before the yard finally became operative.

[1] The new company name was Aktiebolaget Sandvikens Skeppsdocka och Mekaniska Verkstad in Swedish and Osakeyhtiö Hietalahden Sulkutelakka ja Konepaja in Finnish, both meaning 'Hietalahti Shipyard and Engineering Works Ltd.' The founding meeting was held on 18 December 1895.

[2] Unlike the preceding operator of the yard, Hietalahti Shipyard and Engineering Works had a good capital base and could directly invest in new machinery.

Wooden sheds were gradually replaced by brick buildings, which reduced both fire risk and insurance costs.

[7] The early 20th century was a time of increased labour movement activity; also, the yard and engineering shop workers were dissatisfied by their working conditions.

[7] In the early 20th century, the company built passenger ships, tug steamers and other vessels for Finnish and Russian customers.

[7] As Engström had a lot of earlier experience with rolling stock, his contribution to the company's railway wagon-building was significant.

In 1916 engineer K. Albin Johansson started as shipbuilding master and captain Ludwig Schwindt as vice president.

Due to the favourable workload, Hietalahti Shipyard and Engineering Works could pay high dividends to its owners.

The Russian Provisional Government was overthrown in the October Revolution and in the middle of November, a general strike emerged in Finland.

The Red Guards, who took control in the city, strove to run up the production for their own purposes, but the key personnel went into hiding.

With the help of Admiral Maximov he succeeded in obtaining the whole payment in rubles, but managed to change just one third of it into Finnish marks, which was then smuggled to Helsinki into a safe place.

Schwindt had to leave the rest of the money in Petrograd, where he made deposit agreements with the local branches of Branobel and ASEA.

[8] During the war, two icebreakers, Silachya and Stadt Reval, had been docked by unwilling support of a yard supervisor the Red Guards had found and captured.

Restarting the plant had failed largely because the power grid and machinery had been sabotaged before the supervisors had left the yard.

[4] High inflation rates after the war created challenges for the company and required special raw material and labour cost clauses in the contracts.

The shipping company Suomen Valtamerentakainen Kauppa Oy, 'Finnish Transcontinental Trading Ltd.', ordered two 1,600-tonne freight steamers.

Manager Åström travelled to Germany to gain knowledge and hired a German specialist to lead the construction work.

The Finnish state needed new icebreakers to ensure year-round access to its harbours, and had purchased the hull via John Nurminen company.

Due to the poor situation, the company had to discontinue the lease contract for the new shipbuilding area and sell the buildings and equipment.

[4][9] The company decided to start competing with Kone ja Silta by producing steel bridges at dumping prices.

[10] After the acquisition the companies divided their portfolios so that shipbuilding and repair projects were concentrated in Hietalahti and bridge and boiler work in Sörnäinen.

In 1930 the state installed a commission which made an estimate on the required docking capacity for navy and merchant ships.

Politicians and businessmen of Turku lobbied the state to get a dry dock in the local Crichton-Vulcan yard, which also belonged to Kone ja Silta.

In August 1933 the state gave a three million mark loan for enlarging and modernising the dry dock in Hietalahti.

[13] Competition pushed Finnish shipowners to invest in larger vessels, and in 1936 Hietalahti shipyard was fully employed with new building projects.

[13] Kone ja Silta became fully amalgamated into Wärtsilä in July 1938 and it was confirmed at the general meeting in August.