The manufacturing facility employs 20 already and the company hopes to hire 30 additional staff by the end of 2025.
Kirby Group Engineering has opened a new €8m off-site manufacturing (OSM) facility in Portlaoise, Co Laois, and plans to increase the site’s headcount to 50 by the end of 2025.
The new building hosts a dedicated apprentice training facility, an “integral part” of Kirby’s talent pipeline according to the company, which is currently supporting more than 200 apprentices through their four years of training.
The new Portlaoise facility provides fabrication, welding, engineering and building information modelling services and employs 20 already, with plans to increase the headcount by 30 in the next year. Components built at the Portlaoise plant will be transported to sites across all jurisdictions that Kirby operates in.
Headquartered in Limerick, Kirby offers mechanical and electrical engineering contractor services and operates across Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe. It works with companies in the life sciences, data centre, industrial, power and renewables sectors. The company, which hired 500 employees between 2020 and 2021, employs more than 1,800 and is on track to reach revenue of more than €700m this year.
“Kirby has demonstrated remarkably strong growth in their 60 years in business, providing them with a strong sense of where the technology and their customers are going,” said the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke, TD.
Off-site manufacturing is in high demand among the company’s customers, including global IT leaders, according to Kirby Group Engineering CEO Mark Flanagan.
“OSM provides incredible savings when it comes to hours on site, equipment on site, scheduling control, quality control and of course health and safety. We now aim to complete 25pc of our projects through prefabricated methods and this facility is central to that target.”
Leo Clancy, the CEO of Enterprise Ireland said the agency was delight to support the new facility. “It supports a move to more modular construction in the building out of advanced manufacturing facilities thereby capturing more value and increasing sustainable employment for the region,” he said.
In 2022, Kirby launched a third-level bursary to encourage women to take up engineering careers. Last year, the company awarded five students bursaries to cover costs for an academic year in university and granted them paid professional placements on Kirby’s team, where they would be mentored by senior engineers.
Also in 2022, the ESB partnered with Kirby among other companies to open a fast-acting battery plant in Cork. Kirby is working with ESB on delivering sites in Dublin and Cork, with a major battery plant at Poolbeg opening earlier this year.
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