Established since 2000, Instrotec Limited aims to provide the best in Electrical, Instrumentation and Building Management Systems for its clients. Building Ireland touched base with Managing Director Donal Johnston to learn all about the ins and outs of a thriving business out west.
Business is good these days at Instrotec Limited and the plan for company directors Donal and Donna Johnston is to try and keep things that way right through to 2022.
Based just outside the town of Westport in Co Mayo, Instrotec Limited provides services and support to the growing Life Sciences, Semi-Conductor, Data Centres, Healthcare and Oil & Gas sectors.
Over the past two decades, the company has grown its workforce to more than 350 strong with tradesmen that are based all over the country.
Building Ireland caught up with Donal Johnston to find out more about the company – from its origins to the state of business today.
“Right now, we have over 350 staff that would be largely made up of trades and apprentices supported by site managers and engineers which are based all over Ireland,” Donal outlined.
“We just recently finished a data centre for Dornan Engineering in Frederica, Denmark and one for Mercury Engineering in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, now, we have secured enough work in Ireland to keep us busy until the end of 2021.”
When husband and wife Donal and Donna Johnston founded their company at the turn of the millennium, they would be setting up a business which aimed to meet client requirements in a professional and competent manner.
Health & Safety and Quality still remains the priority for Instrotec Limited with the company’s focus being the safe delivery of quality projects and services on time, to specification and within budget.
Rewind back to the company’s inception and it’s clear as day that it came from humble beginnings.
A native of Achill Island, Donal worked in Westport before making the move to Dublin to work with Mercury Engineering.
Years of experience there helped him to eventually go out on his own in 2000, after he had noticed that no other companies were specialising in Instrumentation and Controls.
From there, Instrotec Limited grew year on year with its first project in a semiconductor wafer manufacturing facility, in Leixlip, Co. Kildare, having gone to plan and delivered on time and the company has been working alongside some of the biggest engineering companies ever since.
While it’s a different world today with the Covid-19 pandemic and the government restrictions which have followed in order to combat the spread of the virus, Instrotec Limited continues to thrive as a business.
As Donal outlined though, the Spring of 2020 was a challenging time for the business as so many plans went by the wayside until things opened up again in the summer.
“At the end of 2019, we were very much preparing for a bumper year coming into 2020,” explained Donal.
“We were successful on a number of projects in the greater Dublin area and all these projects were due to commence in early 2020, these projects included data centres, semiconductor manufacturing facility and healthcare.
“Then Covid hit and our projects came to a standstill. I suppose we were lucky enough in that we had a large data centre project on-going in Denmark and when the work stopped here, we concentrated on the work over there as well as planning for project restarts here in Ireland.”
Today, it is all systems go again for Instrotec Limited and, as Donal himself puts it, “there’s is lot of work here in Ireland at the moment, so much so Donna and I restructured the company, Thomas Duignan who has worked extremely hard down through the years and for his efforts he is now Operations Director, we also promoted were James Grace, Michael Craven and Diarmuid O’Malley to Senior Contracts Managers for their tough grind as well.”.
“We slowly got back to work from July last year and eventually by the beginning of the fourth quarter all our trade staff were back and the projects were up and running,” said the Mayo man.
“We’re lucky enough in that the blue-chip companies that we work for have extremely large footprints, their sites and offices are Covid compliant with facilities for handwashing, multiple sanitising stations, Covid Compliance Officers, Covid cleaners in canteens and everything else so as to stay compliant.”
“Currently with all of the work in Ireland and we’re lucky that we have all our staff here to keep the projects manned. We are also enquiring and tendering projects in the Benelux and Nordic countries for next year, as we have had a presence there for the last 7 years. We see Europe as a major market for Instrotec Limited going forward.”
So, what has been the secret to such remarkable success for Instrotec Limited over the past two decades?
According to its Managing Director, an experience management team and workforce delivering quality projects go a long way in any line of work.
“We also have a niche in the market because we can adapt to and from Electrical Contracting, Instrumentation and Controls and Building Management Systems installations and commissioning,” said Donal.
“We’ve got the experience here, having been founded back in 2000, and we have a very adaptable workforce that are willing to travel.
“We also deliver on time and within budget, as they say, you’re only as good as your last project.”
The way Donal and Donna Johnston see it, a major part of Instrotec Limited’s success has been down to its workforce.
They continue to be the company’s most valuable asset and they are continually encouraged to be the best they can be.
Looking towards the months ahead, Donal says they will be keen to keep doing what they’re doing at Instrotec Limited as the company targets even further growth in the European market.
Instrotec Limited
Unit E2,
Westpoint,
Westport,
Co Mayo,
F28 PC98
Phone: +353 (0)9839100
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, August, Vol 7 No 8
