Based in Swinford, Co Mayo, MG Plant & Machinery Sales Ltd stands as one of the country’s largest suppliers of heavy plant and machinery for the construction sector. Building Ireland touched base with David Rowley (After Sales) to learn more about this thriving business out west which became the official distributor of XCMG Machinery in Ireland earlier this year.
Business is good these days at MG Plant & Machinery Sales Ltd and the plan for founding brothers Martin Gleeson and Michael Gleeson and their team situated along the Old Dublin Road in Swinford, Co Mayo is to try and keep things that way for the foreseeable.
Operating with 20 full-time staff, the company, which is established since 1995, stocks a broad range of new and used machinery for sale in Ireland, the UK, Europe and indeed worldwide.
It also has a spare parts department dubbed ‘MG Plant Spares’ which stocks a broad range of spare parts for all brands of machinery, shipping all over Ireland and throughout the globe.
Building Ireland spoke with David Rowley, a key component in MG Plant & Machinery Sales Ltd’s After Sales Department, to discuss the ins and outs of the business and its overall hopes going forward.
“We have around 20 staff at the moment and we also have a MG Plant Spares Ltd where we’d cover parts for equipment like excavators and plant machinery, so there’s a few lads working on that but we all work under the one address. Along with the machinery, we’re still quite busy with parts and that’s to retail and trade customers,” he outlined.
He added: “We have a good team in Spare Parts that is headed up by Niall O’Donnell and we’d have extensive access to final drive assemblies, the track motors, slew motors, engine components, hydraulic pump components, oil coolers and under carriage hardware.”
This past March saw MG Plant & Machinery Sales becoming theofficial distributors for XCMG Machinery & Equipment Ireland, and it’s a move which has certainly paid dividends for both parties.
Originally established in 1943, XCMG is today the third largest producers of plant machinery and safety equipment in the world.
It has been ranked amongst ‘The Top 500 World Brands’ for the past four years which is very much reflected in the quality and durability of its equipment.
XCMG machines on offer along the Dublin Road in Swinford include excavators, boom lift, hoisting and rollers/loaders, and customers are provided with a three-year warranty on selected machines.
Considering the amount of top-quality machinery that MG Plant & Machinery Sales has on offer, it’s no surprise to hear that business is in a good place at the moment for the company.
“Things are getting busier all the time,” David stated. “Sales seem to be up and definitely the addition of XCMG has brought this extra dimension to this company now, whereas we were always kind of dealing with the second-hand machinery or one-off customer orders for new machinery.
“Now, we have the option to either supply the customer with new machines or we still have a good range of second-hand machines from Hitachi, CAT, Volvo, JCB. We still carry a good second-hand range, but we have the brand-new range there of XCMG.
“We’re a distributor with them since March of this year and they’ve been very popular here. The 2.7 tonne is a great seller and comes fully loaded, factory fitted with hammer pipes, check valves and a second auxiliary line circuit on it proportional to the joystick.
“Basically, the machine comes into us that it’s ready to go to the customer bar fitting on a hydraulic hitch and supplying the buckets. It seems to be a good seller for us at the moment with lads that are into utilities and ground works.”
He added: “We’ve put out numerous 5.5 tonnes and 8 tonnes as well, so that’s the XE55E and XE80E that are going fairly well for us at the minute here.”
Along with the above mentioned, larger machines are now coming into stock including the XCMG XE135E, XE155ECR, XE220E and XE235ECR. Road compaction rollers and access equipment in the lines of scissors lifts and boom lifts from XCMG are now being stocked by the Mayo based dealer.
As well as being the official distributor of XCMG Machinery in Ireland, MG Plant & Machinery Sales also stocks top brands that include Hitachi, Caterpillar, JCB, Kubota, Komatsu, Kobelco, Case, Daewoo, Doosan, Volvo and many others.
On the finance end of things, the family-run firm can arrange commercial finance for any of its machinery.
So, all of that considered, the burning question is what has been the secret MG Plant & Machinery Sales’ undoubted success to date?
How has a small start-up grown into a what is now very much a thriving company that specialises in the sale and export of quality used construction equipment from most of the recognised brands in the market place, and, as well as that, has an excellent reputation amongst its customers to boot.
“It’s about getting the customer back in again after three or four years,” said David. “We know the customer and we know the machine that they’re bringing back, and we can provide a good price on trade in as well as on sales.
“At the moment, we’ve seen more of an influx of customers coming to us because of the fact that since we’ve started in the spare parts, they’re buying spare parts off us.
“Then, when it comes to changing the machine, they’re coming back into us because we’ve been supplying them for the last five or six years with spare parts for the machine they have. So, they’re coming back to us as a first port of call.”
Looking at the months ahead for this family-run venture, David says that there is plenty of optimism moving forward with even further growth on the company’s radar.
“It looks to be fairly busy, so hopefully there will be more additions to the staff. We have service vans on the road all the time and are covering nationwide from here in Swinford in Mayo.” he concluded.
MG Plant & Machinery Sales Ltd
Old Dublin Road,
Swinford,
Co Mayo (F12 DF24).
Tel: +353 (0) 94 9251209
Tel: +353 (0) 87 2466111
Web: www.mgplant.com
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
Opening hours:
Mon-Fri: 08.30am-6pm
Sat: 10am-3pm
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, October 2024, Vol 10 No 10
