Sales Executives Kevin Fitzpatrick and John Browne outside Heavey Technology's new factory at the Waterford Business Park.| Photo: Mick Wall
With 25 years of professional savvy to call upon, market leading label manufacturer Heavey Technology has proven a welcome addition to the Waterford business sphere in recent weeks.
Based in the Waterford Business Park, just a couple of minutes from the city’s ‘Motor Mile’ on the Cork Road, Heavey Technology (HT) is holding an open day this Thursday, November 20th (10am to 5pm) during which it will showcase its wares to prospective clients.
“We’ve opened in Waterford with a view to expanding the range of business we do in the Munster area,” said HT Sales Executive Kevin Fitzpatrick.
“And key to that is to have a local presence, establish a factory here where we can manufacture, employ local people and work closely with local business, and Thursday’s open day gives us a chance to demonstrate our label printing and bar coding technology.”
Kevin added: “The open day, which will be attended by Metropolitan Mayor Lola O’Sullivan, is aimed at potential customers along with a range of professionals, including logistic and IT managers, who will be able to see the latest technology in RF, Voice Picking and warehouse management.”
With two factories already manufacturing product in Dublin, HT has chosen to bring its expertise to Waterford in the wake of the closure of Intacta Print.
At present, HT has two sales representatives and a print operative in Waterford, but as Kevin added: “We’re confident that our workforce will expand as increased business levels come in; we’ve got key accounts already in Munster and we’re keen to build on that.”
So what do HT do? “What we manufacture here is labels but the auto ID industry is our business,” said Kevin Fitzpatrick.
He explained: “By that, I mean anything related to labelling, be it product marking, labelling a product, scanning a product, logistically moving a product, warehouse management and shipping of your product, ID-ing your product all the way from factory to customer, and so on.
“There’s a great deal to the process, but it’s work we’ve prided ourselves on doing well over the past 25 years and that’s what we’ll aim to demonstrate during the open day.
“On Thursday, we hope to discuss business and our capabilities with a range of professionals, be they industrial engineers, IT personnel, logistics managers, purchasing managers, production managers, factory managers, quality control professionals and anyone with an interest in our technologies and products.
“Be it automatic print inspections, which would be of keen interest to life science and pharma professionals, or our production and printing of self-adhesive labels, which production managers would be particularly interested in, we can discuss and demonstrate these come Thursday.”
In terms of recent commercial performance, Kevin added: “We’ve been relatively consistent. Of course, like any industry, there have been ups and downs, but our focus has always been on our quality of product, and with our customer base, that’s helped us to come through and in recent times, we’ve experienced growth, and that’s based on the fact that we can deliver the product our customers want when they want it.”
And is there an expectation that HT will expand and develop its workforce in tandem with its customer base in Waterford?
“Absolutely,” Kevin replied. “That’s the goal. The goal is to build a strong customer base that will be serviced from our factory here in Waterford and that can only bring growth. We employ over 90 people currently and a large portion of that number work in production and that’s what we’re looking to build and develop here in time.”
Michael Heavey has built up a proven, reliable and reputable business over the past quarter century, and the HT team will demonstrate their expertise during Thursday’s open day.
Be it label or inkjet printing systems, bespoke bar coding and label application systems to list just a few of the company’s areas of expertise, HT personnel will be on hand this Thursday to potential customers to show how and what they do. And do so well, for that matter.
Kevin Fitzpatrick concluded: “We believe that our open day will be well worth attending for anyone with a serious interest in improving aspects of their industrial, manufacturing or logistics function.”
