Established close to 40 years, Semiton Ltd have grown into a genuine leader as general building construction contractors, operating primarily in the pharmaceutical sector. The company’s General Manager Jerry Martin gave Building Ireland the lowdown.
They say family run businesses often turn out to be the best ones. Well, when it comes to Semiton Ltd in Co Tipperary, it’s safe enough to add another to that bracket.
Based in Clonmel, the company has turned into a real success story over the past four decades having secured repeat business from so many of its clients down through the years.
Sean Murphy is the current Managing Director at Semiton Ltd and his family name has been immersed in the company since its foundation.
Jerry Martin came on board with Semiton earlier this year and was happy to report to us that “business is pretty brisk” right now, as they continue to make the most of the recent upturn in the market.
“We’re based on the Dungarvan Road in Clonmel, Co Tipperary,” explained Jerry. “The company would be established almost 40 years now; it started in 1979 to be exact. We’ve 40 staff here at the moment and I am the General Manager. Sean Murphy owns the company.”
Semiton Ltd have been in operation since the late 1970s as a Contracting and Project Management outfit and since that time they’ve established a substantial contracting business with turnover in recent years reflecting the continued success enjoyed by the company.
Based in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, the business operates from its own Head Office on the Dungarvan road on the outskirts of the town.
The company has secured a large amount of repeat business over the years with some big name clients including Teva Pharmaceutical, Merck Sharp & Dohme (Irl) Ltd, Abbott Vascular Ireland, Health Services Executive, Goodman International Group, Musgraves Group, Dairygold Foods, The Kerry Group, Avonmore Foods and Showerings Ireland Ltd amongst others.
Semiton Ltd has been consistently profitable, despite trading through several difficult economic periods, and shareholders’ funds have steadily increased throughout the life of the company, providing the company with a strong equity base to trade from.
Right now, Semiton Ltd is currently taking advantage of its strong position and has significant confirmed work on its order books. Having consolidated its position in the industrial and commercial sectors, the family-run business is enjoying much success in the pharmaceutical sector.
The company employs, depending on demand, between 40 to 100 staff, with a total available pool of up to 180 direct personnel.
In common with all sectors of the construction industry, Semiton Ltd employs specialist sub-contractors to supplement its direct labour force. All sub-contractors are subject to the full internal quality and safety controls of the company and are fully certified and registered.
They have a first class safety record, this being recognised by the Construction Industry Federation with several achievements and awards over the years including Safe-T-Cert.
Jerry testified to the well-known fact that the company is experiencing very busy times at present as the books continue to fill up.
“We’re general building construction contractors, operating primarily in the pharmaceutical sector, and right now we have a number of on-going projects,” he stated.
“Historically, we’ve had contracts across different food processing facilities, such as Bulmers, Dairy Gold and Cashel Blue Cheese, and recently we have been engaged on various different jobs in the healthcare, retail and educational sectors.”
At present, the company is immersed in several projects all over the country and the business climate in the industry is much different to around 2011.
For Jerry, he couldn’t have come on board at Semiton Ltd during a better time, as the Company develops its long term business plan and bids for more projects.
“Business is going well,” he said. “We can see that there is work out there to be got and business is pretty brisk but still very competitive. Nationwide, we’ve done work in schools in Cork, Tipperary and Waterford and Super Valu stores in Midleton and Cobh.
“Compared to say five years ago, I’d say the outlook in the industry is a lot better. Right now we’re engaged in a number of projects in the pharmaceutical industry including clean-room construction along with private development work as well.”
Past projects for Semiton Ltd include Bulmers in Clonmel,
On the industrial end, the company have worked on projects at Abbey Machinery in Toomevara, FCI in Fermoy and EPS in Mallow.
So why do Semiton’s clients choose them first? Jerry explained: “Our focus is very much on customer satisfaction and we feel that quality and value for money are essential for them. We retain a strong core of direct staff who know what our clients want and what they expect.
“We also have a strong Health and Safety ethic here from the top all the way down, which is important when you’re concentrating on the pharmaceutical end. The Company have reached a landmark recently of 600,000 hours without a Lost Time Accident which is a credit to the diligent efforts of all our staff, our dedicated subcontract supply chain and the customers we work with.”
As aforementioned, Semiton Ltd has a strong Health and Safety policy which it abides by in order to achieve and sustain the highest of standards possible in the areas of Health, Safety and the Environment.
At a minimum this means conformance to the requirements of Irish and European legislation as it pertains to Environment Health and Safety.
At Semiton, the aim to continually improve the Health and Safety performance by having an ongoing pro-active approach to safety management and it is an approach that has been recognised by the company achieving Safe T Cert, a certification scheme designed for certifying the Safety management Systems of Contractors working in the Construction Industry.
Semiton Ltd also has its own training facility which provides Manual Handling, Safe-Pass and Abrasive Wheel training amongst others to both internal and external customers.
Semiton Ltd
Address: Dungarvan Road,
Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Tel: 052 612 3111
Fax: 052 612 3032
Web: www.semiton.com
Taken from Building Ireland magazine, September 2016, Vol 2 No 5
