Established in 2017, NextGen Electrical Ltd is an award-winning electrical installations firm based in Bailieborough, Co. Cavan which operates nationwide.
NextGen Electrical provides high-end solutions to the commercial, domestic, industrial, office fitout and EV fitout sectors. The company utilises all the latest materials and techniques to achieve the highest levels of quality and safety standards, and has extensive knowledge of modern technologies that many of its competitors simply cannot offer.
Managing director Shane Magee was only 24 when he set up the company which now employs 20 people directly and the same number on a subcontract basis. He was serving his apprenticeship with Callaghan Electrical when he won the Irish Apprentice of the Year Award in 2014 and represented Ireland in Electrical Installations at the World Skills 2015 competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil where he won a Medallion of Excellence.
Only last year, NextGen Electrical was honoured in the ‘Medium Commercial Project of the Year’ category at Ireland’s Electrical Awards for carrying out a full LED upgrade across all An Post units nationwide. The Awards are the industry’s most prestigious set of independent awards and are all about showcasing the absolute best in Ireland’s electrical sector.
Having acquired some contacts in the Dublin area through the World Skills competition, Shane secured a small housing development as his first substantial project. Through word of mouth and referrals, NextGen Electrical has since gone from strength to strength. In 2019, the Co. Cavan company secured the contract to replace all the existing lighting throughout the country to a LED equivalent for An Post on behalf of a leading facilities management company.
Since then, NextGen Electrical has also installed large-scale EV (Electric Vehicle) infrastructure across multiple sites to cater for An Post’s electric vehicle rollout. An Post has the largest EV fleet in the country. The internal lighting upgrade for An Post sites nationwide was a major undertaking given the timeframe, busy environment and vast area that had to be covered. But despite these challenges, the project was completed ahead of schedule and extremely efficiently.
An Post is a 24/7 operation and as such, NextGen Electrical had to meticulously plan its sites, taking into consideration what areas of each building could be isolated without causing any disruption to the day-to-day running of the site. The contractor also had to group the sites in a way that it could maximise productivity each week without spending too much time on the road. This meant forecasting each week and predicting a start and finishing point throughout the country, organisation accommodation each night and also carrying enough spare stock to overcome any unforeseen scenarios.
To help deliver the project efficiently, NextGen Electrical developed an App specifically for the project. Within the App, there were various dropdown menus, including the names of each fitting, part number of the associated fitting, quantity of each fitting installed and each fitting removed, area in which they were installed as well as each site name and address. A list of any access equipment needed and sundry material was also included.
Each team was equipped with a tablet and each site was signed off on completion, at which point both NextGen Electrical’s office and the client received a copy via email. In addition, a dashboard was developed as part of the App so that at a quick glance the team could track progress of the project. This led to the smooth running of the project from the initial planning right through to the billing stage.
The redundant fittings at each site were carefully placed in a non-disruptive location and the recycling collection was organised by NextGen Electrical. The client was extremely happy with the swift delivery of the project given the scale and vast area which Shane and his crew covered.
Two different manufacturers were used across the project, with each individual site receiving products that best suited their particular requirements. For example, in large-scale mail sorting halls, the contractor used individually sensored fittings so that as each staff member finished their sorting and went on their rounds, the lighting in that area would switch off.
This meant that during the day, only the main circulation areas would remain on. In the office areas of these buildings, NextGen Electrical tried where possible to reduce the wattage and quantity of fittings. If there was significant daylight coming into the buildings, lighting with built-in DALI dimming was used. As a result, a huge reduction on the day-to-day energy running costs of the sites was achieved, dramatically reducing An Post’s carbon footprint in the process.
NextGen Electrical has collaborated with another facilities management company on projects for Vodafone and The Beacon Hospital. It is also involved in the residential sector where it carries out electrical installations on behalf of main contractors such as KIMA Construction and Moyarn Ltd.
“From humble beginnings, we now have 20 staff on our books and are covering all 26 counties in the south of Ireland. We have teams carrying out electrical installations across many different sectors, including residential, commercial, modern shop fitouts, commercial EV fitouts and, of course, maintenance,” Shane explains.
“We aim to keep moving with the times and one way we are doing this is by developing Apps for our different sectors. This streamlines the administration elements and also allows us to monitor site progress remotely, be that our recent nationwide lighting fitout for An Post, or our ongoing residential projects. We can see exactly what’s done at any given time and plan ahead accordingly.”
Shane is full of praise for his team, which includes his brother Mark.
“We are very lucky to have top-class staff at a time when they are difficult to come by. We have great foreman and electricians who are driving our growth. We’re extremely busy and long may that continue to be the case.”
An old head on young shoulders, Shane would like to take this opportunity to thank his clients and suppliers for their continued support as well as his staff and subcontractors for their hard work, dedication and expertise.
NextGen Electrical Ltd
Carrickacromin,
Bailieborough,
Co. Cavan,
A82 VF81.
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, May 2023, Vol 9 No 5
