Expanding into new markets opened up new doors for Arolco

Having entered 2015 with a £20,000 cash injection to help his company expand into new markets, John Paul McHugh, managing director at Co Tyrone-based Arolco Ireland, is feeling optimistic about the group's prospects.

The manufacturing company received the funding from Invest Northern Ireland in January to put towards creating four jobs as part of its plans to boost sales and roll-out new products in the United Kingdom and the Republic.

The family-owned company specialises in the manufacture, service and maintenance of polyurethane and rubber rollers, wheels and parts, as well as in general engineering, for a wide range of industries including agri-food, concrete production, quarrying, and paper and packaging.

Overall, Arolco, which has its main facility in Castlederg, near Strabane, is investing £133,936 this year as it seeks to grow its market share. Currently, about 40 per cent of its business comes from the Republic, but if McHugh has his way, that will soon change.

Grow further

“Our business has been steadily growing in recent years and we’re doing well both in Northern Ireland and the Republic, but we want to grow further in the coming years,” he said.

Established in 1992 following a merger between two companies, the company was initially led by John Paul’s father, William. The original Arolco, which had been set up a few years earlier, primarily focused on the manufacturing and recovering of rollers.

“Initially, when we started off we were mainly servicing the printing industry but there’s obviously a lot less printing going on generally these days so we’re now working across multiple sectors. Our merger with Maxweld Engineering in the early 90s allowed us to create a bigger company that could offer a complete solution covering the design, manufacture, installation and maintenance of rollers for production machinery,” he said.

“Maxweld had been in the steel fabrication business for years and once it was incorporated into the general business we invested heavily in precision engineering and are now rolling out custom-built machining facilities to industry, which has helped increase our customer base.”

Originally located at premises in the village of Victoria Bridge, the company recently moved to a specially fitted out facility in the Spamount industrial estate in Castlederg, about seven miles down the road. It currently employs about 40 people, a few of whom are closely related to John Paul.

“My sister Rita looks after admin, my brother Donald is a director and is heavily involved in the business, and my two sons Sean and Ryan are also employed as general manager and department manager respectively. It’s still very much a family affair,” he said.

John Paul himself says he was pretty much always involved in the business. He took over managing the engineering side of the business ten years ago and became managing director of the firm in 2010.

As with many other companies, Arolco saw its share of tough days during the recession but John Paul said that cutting expenses and increased spending on research and development helped the firm get through the worst of it unscathed.

Invest

“Business was certainly tough and we had to tighten our belts, but at the same time we took the decision to invest more in technology and this led us to develop a new waterproof polyurethane coating that can be applied using a special spray gun. This means it can be used for multiple purposes. That opened up a lot of doors for us,” he said.

“We’re always looking for new business and are currently working on a new Teflon coating product that we think could be very successful. As far as I’m aware, there’s no other company offering anything similar to this on the island of Ireland.”

These days, John Paul says that business is growing across the board with more work coming in from companies associated with sawmills and the woodworking industry. He’s also seeing more opportunities coming from the energy sector.

“Recently, we’ve gotten involved with quite a big company in the Republic that manufactures pressure release valves for the oil and gas industry. We’re doing quite a bit of machine and fabrication work for them. We’re hoping that this line of work will increase over the coming years.”

Many of the company’s employees have been with Arolco since the beginning. However, it did recently take on a number of new staff members.

While some might imagine that searching for suitably qualified staff might be something of an issue in a place like Castlederg, John Paul said finding the right people was relatively straightforward.

"Co Tyrone is widely known as being something of a hub for engineering with plenty of companies based in the areas. There are plenty of people with the right skills . . . around these parts and so it's a good place for us to be based in."