Based in Athlone, Co Westmeath, Woodfit Ltd is one of the leading specialist joineries, specialising also in custom made furniture and acoustic panelling manufacturing not just in Ireland but across the globe. Building Ireland spoke with Managing Director Anthony Denby to find out all about the ins and outs of the company and state of business for it at the moment.
Business has been flourishing as of late at Woodfit Ltd and the plan for Anthony Denby and the team at Moydrum Road, Athlone, Co Westmeath is to try and keep things that way right through to 2023.
Operating with 50 full-time staff, the company is the world’s foremost provider of wooden acoustic panelling and has client base which spans the globe.
As it stands, Woodfit has had a strong presence in the Middle East, South America and UK markets while also expanding into Singapore, Vietnam and Egypt, with numerous projects currently on-going in the latter.
The newest market the company has delved into is Israel, as Managing Director Anthony Denby outlined to Building Ireland recently.
“We’ve been very busy lately and have been doing a lot of projects in Egypt,” he stated.
“We’re back in the UK market again with projects at Cambridge University and Microsoft Headquarters UK. Israel has been the new market for us and we’re excited about the projects we have coming up there and the ones will we hopefully have in the future.”
It’s all a far cry from where Woodfit Ltd started out more than 40 years ago.
Founded in 1979 by Jim Denby, the company has since evolved into a worldwide leader in specialist joinery, wooden acoustic panelling and custom-made joinery.
Since that time, Woodfit Ltd has expanded into markets in the UK, Middle East and South America, to name but a few, and the expansion into more continues.
Closer to home, the company has numerous projects in operation and right now many of those are situated in and around Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick.
With the building industry having spent the last two years or so dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, many businesses have had to adapt themselves reorganising their business looking at the possible impact to their business and try to manage for what lies ahead.
“While the past 24 months have been challenging for both Woodfit and the industry as a whole, we have adapted ourselves through implementing a new research facility to broaden our range of acoustic panelling and we invested heavily in new equipment and the training of our workforce. We had to reshape our workforce letting as many of our staff work from home using this time to invest in training and innovation. The lockdown inadvertently gave us the time and the opportunity to do this which we otherwise may not have had.”
The Covid-19 pandemic, and the government lockdowns which followed to combat the spread of the virus, naturally impacted Woodfit with projects being halted due to restrictions.
As Anthony himself explained, many of the company’s projects which continued to go ahead during the pandemic were situated in Ireland and overseas. The overseas projects had to be delivered on as contracts were in place for these.
“It was a bit of a nuisance getting around at the time with the travel restrictions,” said the MD.
“We’d a lot of projects in Ireland during the lockdown and the HSE would’ve been one of the main clients.
“We finished off the new mental health hospital in Portraine during the pandemic for JJ Rhatigan.
“We’ve a project on-going at Royal Irish Academy for Purcell Construction and another at Crowne Square Plaza, for JJ Rhatigan, Alexandra College for Clancy Construction, Avondale House for John Sisk, Genesys for John Sisk, Gasworks for Conark, Jazz Pharma for John Paul Construction and Bunratty Castle for Best Western Hotels and Resorts so construction is fairly busy and we’ve quite a number of high-end homes going on as well. These are just some of the projects we have in Ireland.”
Even throughout the pandemic and the challenges that arose from it, particularly with regards to travel, Woodfit remained one of the world’s premier power providers of turnkey wooden fit-out solutions.
The company continues to apply its considerable experience and expertise to creating spaces that sound as good as they look.
All of that considered, the burning question is what has been the secret to the growth and success of Woodfit over the past 43 years?
How has a small start-up grown into a leader of specialist joinery, wooden acoustic panelling and custom-made furniture manufacturing – not just in Ireland but worldwide.
For Anthony Denby, it comes down to the trust that has been earned from clients down through the years by producing quality work time and time again.
“Like everything, they know us for a start and know that they can trust us to do the job right,” he said.
“We have years of experience when it comes to the acoustic side and the manufacturing side – there are no other companies in Ireland manufacturing wooden acoustic panelling, others are importing these products.
“The fact that we can provide a turnkey package is part of the reason why we have so much repeat business with our clients.
“A huge winner for us in Egypt for example has been the turnkey service.”
Indeed, the turnkey service is another string in Woodfit’s bow and there aren’t many other specialist fabricators in Ireland that are the producing the same level of quality, dependability and innovation.
“Collaboration between our Distributors and Agents in the markets we export our services and products to have been an integral part to our success for many years and may be even more so following the pandemic. Woodfit has recently entered into new partnerships that combines its interior expertise focused on the turn key solutions.”
The company has come a long way from where it first started out in the late 1970s as a manufacturer of bespoke kitchen cabinets to now being a world-renowned specialist fabricator.
Looking towards the coming months for the business, Anthony sees plenty of positives – not least with the current range of projects they have lined up across the globe.
While Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine is a worry with regards to work on the continent and further afield, the Managing Director still holds a very positive outlook overall.
“We’re in a strong position at the moment and I’d say we have at least 16 months’ work ahead of us,” Anthony outlined.
“The real worry at the moment is the situation in the Ukraine and what the knock-on effect will be from that because of the high rise of material costs it could end up effecting our overseas markets as well as the domestic market here in Ireland.
“Domestic-wise, our books are full and, as it stands, we have years and years of work ahead of us in Egypt, so hopefully the situation in Ukraine doesn’t impact that.”
He concluded: “We still have a 60,000 square foot facility here (in Athlone) and just added three new warehouses to keep with the demand from our clients, so it’s all go for us at the moment.”
Woodfit Ltd,
Moydrum Rd,
Athlone,
Co. Westmeath
Tel: +353 (0) 90 6478555
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.woodfit.ie
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, June 2022, Vol 8 No 6
