Clontarf-native Sir David McMurtry, who co-founded precision tools manufacturer Renishaw in 1973, makes no apologies for putting invention at the heart of the company
PLAYING in his father’s tinned foods factory – whose clunking, whirring machinery later produced boiled sweets – while growing up in Fairview in the 1940s and 1950s undoubtedly fuelled Clontarf-native David McMurtry’s inventive curiosity.
Knighted in Britain in 2001 for services to design and innovation, today 71-year-old McMurtry’s 36 per cent stake in Renishaw – the Gloucestershire-based exporting powerhouse he and former Rolls-Royce colleague John Deer founded in 1973 – is worth about €430 million.
Employing more than 2,700 people – including more than 70 in Dublin – the firm makes precision engineering tools such as microscopes, spectrometers, lasers and analysers for the likes of aircraft, jet engine and solar panel manufacturers.
Last month it was awarded a prize for innovation by the Queen’s Award for Enterprise – its 15th award in the highest honour a business can receive in the UK – sharing the distinction with previous winners such as JCB and the aforementioned Rolls-Royce.
A keen aptitude for maths and science – “I was hopeless at everything else,” he says – informed him from an early age. On leaving school, his parents wanted him to pursue a safe and steady career in insurance here, but instead he took an apprenticeship with Bristol Aero Engines in England.
After the firm merged and was then acquired by Rolls-Royce’s aero engines division, by 1966 he was deputy chief designer and assistant chief of engine design at its Filton plant.
While working as a troubleshooter on the Olympus engines for Concorde in the early 1970s, he invented the touch-trigger probe, initially to solve the problem of measuring small diameter oil and fuel pipes in the engine. It evolved into a key precision engineering tool and spun off others that have underpinned Renishaw’s success.
“Where anything needs to be measured in manufacturing and particularly traceable components in aerospace – which is basically our home territory – the medical sector, and also in car manufacturing (another area where quality control is important), you’ll find a Renishaw product,” he says.
Headquartered in a 19th-century mill beside a lake and small nature reserve, where geese waddle around the car park and a peacock is sometimes perched on the reception roof, exports accounted for about 95 per cent of its sales of €352 million last year, generating a profit of €80 million.
In a modest first-floor office where our interview takes place, a number of drawings on sheets of squared paper are lying on McMurtry’s desk – a sign of his enduring passion for design and invention.
“I’ve always been criticised for overdoing R&D, but it’s my hobby and I’ve got to look after it,” he says.
Last year Renishaw invested €50 million in R&D, but “the City doesn’t like it that high”, he says, referring to its FTSE 250 listing and €1.2 billion market capitalisation. The City also disapproves of the €38 million he keeps in the company bank account as a contingency fund; he has a long-held aversion to debt.
On the coffee table between us are two intricately detailed metal examples of what the technology that underpins what one of the firm’s recent acquisitions can do. The company recently bought a former Bosch factory in south Wales where it will make adaptive layer machines.
Similar to 3D printers that use paper and glue, metal powder, adhesive and other additives are combined to custom-produce or print metal parts and objects layer by layer.
“You can print a steel or higher value metal part very accurately. Automated production of high value, low volume metal objects is one of the most interesting things happening in manufacturing today,” he enthuses.
Getting to this point has not been without its challenges however. After he and Deer bought the touch trigger probe patent from Rolls-Royce in 1987, they had to fight two costly court battles, one in the US with a distributor and another with a manufacturer to protect their business.
They won both cases, and it taught them not only how to construct and defend patents but also what it takes to protect an invention – something he has been happy to pass on.
“If there’s an alternative way of doing what your invention does, you need to consider it and patent it as well. But you also need to think how you would improve on an original invention or replace it and patent that as well.” Several full-time patent agents help Renishaw do this.
To have a competitive edge, inventors also need to consider how their invention can be efficiently manufactured. “There’s as much innovation in how we make things as in an invention’s original patents,” McMurtry says.
He has concerns about the number of distractions faced by children and teenagers who might share his appetite for invention.
“Countries are at their best when they’re manufacturing. The greatest real wealth comes from mining, agriculture or manufacturing. We have to show how exciting engineering and advanced manufacturing is. Formula 1 is a visible beacon in the UK, so is the aircraft industry to some extent. Medical robots using metrology are used in brain surgery,” he continues.
More inventiveness that generates exports from high-tech manufacturing is essential for Ireland and the UK, but too many politicians are focused on taking the short-term credit for jobs announcements, he argues.
“Foreign direct investment is great for achieving short-term political goals, but it’s not a long-term view. You want more Irish-owned businesses in all sectors: loads of Kingspans and more on the food and farming side, perhaps some of it more automated. Low corporation tax should keep companies there. But some get around that through transfer pricing. Ireland is in danger if large multinationals make little or no profit there. Importing jobs doesn’t earn enough revenue in the long-term.
“Going after jobs is a great vote-catcher as seen by the man in the street. But he doesn’t look at what it means for the future. Britain is doing the same thing. No politician sees more than four years ahead and they lack commercial nous.”
For Renishaw’s part, it will continue to focus on growing sales in markets such as Asia and South America, keeping an eye out for acquisitions “that are proven to be a success and are complementary to what we’ve got”.
As an example, earlier this month MDL, a Yorkshire company Renishaw is in the process of acquiring released a tiny 43g laser that could add a 3D scanning function to mobile phone cameras.
He has also made some personal angel investments in growing companies that he declines to discuss. Meanwhile more of McMurtry’s wealth will be channelled to various philanthropic efforts.
More reflectively he adds: “Think about the infrastructure that Britain inherited that was already built: water networks, roads and railways left by the Victorians and generations after them. But at the moment, my generation has left a debt. We’ve enjoyed ourselves and unfortunately the people following us are paying it.”
On that note, he returns enthusiastically to his “hobby”, working on new tools and technologies that will buzz and whirr in factories around the world for years to come.
