Leading electrical and mechanical service provider Suir Engineering – part of the Imtech UK and Ireland Group of companies – is looking to the future with renewed optimism after last year’s management buyout restored the business to private ownership and secured all 600 plus jobs here in Ireland.
Established 35 years ago, Suir Engineering was acquired by Dutch technical services group Imtech NV in 2007. When Imtech went out of business in Holland last year, Imtech Suir Engineering managing director Mick Kennedy and his UK counterpart Paul Kavanagh led a management buyout with the financial backing of corporate investors Endless.
Now trading as Suir Engineering in Ireland and Imtech UK in the UK, the company has strong cash reserves and is ideally placed to continue its growth in the coming years. Despite the uncertainty caused by last year’s developments, 80 people were added to the Imtech Group workforce, bringing the total number of directly employed staff in Ireland to 600, with a further 2,000 in the UK.
With offices in Waterford, Dublin, London and across the UK, the business is active in commercial and industrial buildings, and works across all sectors, including Energy & Power, Data Centres, Food & Beverage and Pharma. It has undertaken various projects for many blue chip clients and is in the top three engineering businesses in Ireland and the UK, carrying out €570 million annually.
According to the company’s business development director David Phelan, the decision to revert to trading as Suir Engineering in its homeland has been a positive step.
“Going back to our old name has been well received within the business community. Suir Engineering has a great reputation in this country going back over 30 years and even when we traded under Imtech Suir Engineering, many of our clients still used to refer to us as Suir,” he says.
It speaks volumes for the outstanding service and value-for-money offered by Suir Engineering that 70 per cent of its business is repeat. Indeed, throughout the buyout process, all of the existing customers stayed loyal to the company and supported them along the way.
“We have an impeccable track record on project delivery and that’s why companies choose us time and again,” David adds.
The Waterford-headquartered firm’s client-base includes Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, EiGen, BMS, Alexion, GlaxoSmithKline, Intel, Danone, Ipsen Pharma, IBM, SSE, Bausch & Lomb, Bank of Ireland SmartPly, Glanbia, MSD, Vistakon, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Coca-Cola, ESB, Genezyme and West Pharma.
In the last seven months the firm has acquired multi-million Euro projects from a number of clients. Among the projects Suir Engineering is currently undertaking is a mechanical installation for West Pharma’s new development in Waterford. Also in Waterford the company is very pleased to be associated with Bausch + Lomb’s new multimillion extension. West of the country the business is involved in a full turnkey design and build package for SSE Renewables at Galway Wind Park, and also a wind farm development, grid substation development and connection in Slievecallan for Turnkey Developments / Brookfield. In Limerick the company continues to be very busy in Johnson & Johnson’s Vistakon plant carrying out various E&I projects.
Within the food sector the business is very active with companies like Dairygold, Danone, Kerry Group and Glanbia.
Intel in Leixlip remains a very loyal client of Suir Engineering and they are currently carrying out various sizes of M&E projects there at the moment.
Another key factor in Suir Engineering’s success is its ability to retain staff. The staff is made up of engineers, BIM technicians, planners, project managers, site supervisors and foremen, tradespeople (electrical, mechanical and instrumentation), quantity surveyors, general operatives and safety personnel.
“People serve their time, come up through the system and stay with us. Part of our strength is that we continually upskill our own people. Our staff have many skillsets which are particularly suited to the Pharma, Energy, Data Centre and heavy engineering sectors.
With regards to new recruits, the company visits second and third-level schools promoting what the business offers as a career choice and actively promoting the building industry and encouraging people to consider joining construction and engineering companies.
The key services provided by Suir Engineering are electrical and mechanical installations, turnkey high voltage and transmission systems, BIM (Building Information Modelling), Off-Site Fabrication / Modular Build and pre and final commissioning.
BIM has changed the way the company delivers projects. It helps to generate and manage building data through the whole asset life cycle. It is not only a major benefit to the construction process, but also allows efficient asset management from utilities to infrastructure and real estate. As a contractor, BIM gives Suir Engineering the opportunity to optimise, organise and execute its work on a project. Customers benefit from improved design of MEP services and snag-free installations.
Suir Engineering’s off-site fabrication workshop allows it to pre-fabricate services in a clean controlled environment, affording LEAN construction techniques and providing Program and Quality certainty. The facility is designed to provide high purity steel orbital welding and fabrication in a fully certified Class 10000 Cleanroom Environment.
In addition, Suir Engineering displays a total commitment to Health & Safety, Quality and Environmental issues in every aspect of its operations. This commitment is embodied in the company’s Quality Assurance System which meets ISO 9001:2008 standard, its Health and Safety Management System meets OHSAS 18001 standards and its Environmental Management System meets the ISO 14001 standard.
Suir are not only successful on the business front but also on the sporting one, having won the All-Ireland Interfirm Hurling title in 2016. The team is staff driven and is a great source of pride to all in Suir.
Active in Business in the Community in both Waterford and Dublin, Suir Engineering supports the welfare of the local community and local schools. They are also involved with Pieta House on suicide awareness. As a predominantly male employer, they recognise that suicide is prevalent among young men.
On the community front, Suir are also proactive in helping the homeless community: along with the Peter McVerry Trust, Construction Industry Federation (CIF) and other industry colleagues, they were very much part of the program which succeeded in taking 12 people off the streets of Dublin and put them into accommodation last Christmas.
Suir Engineering strives for continuous improvement, not only to achieve its own goals in its services delivery, but also those of its clients.
Suir Engineering
Waterford Office
Unit 9A,
Cleaboy Business Park,
Old Kilmeaden Road,
Waterford
Suir Engineering
Dublin Office
Block A, Unit 12,
Orchard Business Centre,
Orchard Avenue,
Citywest Business Campus,
Dublin 24
Suir Engineering
London Office
Imtech House,
33-35 Woodthorpe Road,
Ashford, Middlesex,
TW15 2RP
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, August 2016, Vol 2 No 4
