Celebrating 25 years in business, Lappin Engineering Limited continues to be a steelwork specialist company offering bespoke structural steel solutions. Irish Tractor & Agri spoke with Managing Director Brian Lappin to find out more about the Armagh-based company.
Family run businesses can often be the most successful and best to be a part of and for Brian Lappin the success of his company has now spanned 25 years.
Based along the Cornascriebe Road in Portadown, Co Armagh, Lappin Engineering Ltd has earned itself a glowing reputation as specialists in structural steel since setting up shop back in 1991.
Brian and his son Simon are now running the company together and experiencing busy times at present, which is a result of Lappin Engineering’s reputation as a reliable outfit which continues to carry out a professional service for its customers, according to Brian.
Lappin’s founder and director has built the company on the idea that the customer comes first and that utter reliability must be associated with his name. So far things have been going well whilst working with that philosophy.
“We’re here in Portadown and are established 25 years now,” said Brian. “We have five staff in total. Myself and my son Simon are the directors of the company and I’m happy to report that we’re quite busy here at the moment.”
Busy times have been hard to come by in recent years for many Irish companies in the same industry but Lappin Engineering Ltd “were kept ticking over” during the economic downturn, according to Brian, and are now making the most of the recovery. Repeat business from satisfied customers make it all the easier as well.
So what is it that Lappin Engineering Ltd
As aforementioned, they are an established family company working in the steelwork industry offering bespoke structural steel solutions.
Over the last 25 years they have completed projects throughout the UK and Ireland and are proud to have earned a reputation as specialists in structural steel.
Lappin Engineering are committed to providing its clients with high quality products and services, whether it’s a reliable source for structural steel supply or a total bespoke steel solution package. They can deliver steelwork manufactured to Execution Class 2 in accordance with BS EN 1090-1 CE Marking regulations.
“We cover all aspects of steel work and 70 per cent of what we do would be industrial work,” explained Brian.
“We’ve been as far as Scotland and London for some of the work that we’ve done. Our agri work has been a bit slower but we do everything from feeding gates, pens to crushers.”
Indeed the company specialise in providing a complete bespoke structural steelwork package for commercial, industrial, agricultural and retail industries.
The services provided include; estimating, design, manufacture and fabrication, painting and finishing, project management and site installation.
The company’s highly experienced site staff provide efficient and accurate erection of a wide range of steel structures which can also include ancillary items such as roofing and cladding.
“We have been very busy so far in 2016 and that’s continuing on from last year as well,” he said.
“Along with the people we employ here we’d keep a couple of site subcontractor outfits for when we’re busy and we’d be using them at the moment. We were quite lucky during the downturn in that we were kept ticking over and now things are starting to get busy for us again, so we can’t really complain.”
Fortunately, the recession didn’t have the same effect on Brian’s business as others, which saw several companies in the industry closing down for good.
“We managed to stay the same,” he outlined. “When the tiger was roaring we didn’t feel it the same way others did. We’re still working away now and we’re quite lucky compared to some others.
For now though, Brian is focused on the jobs he has on hand and keeping his customers satisfied.
Even 25 years on, he still sees repeat business from clients as being central to the company’s success.
“That’s the core of our business. They say the customer’s always right and we try to do as professional a job as possible. I think that’s why our customers tend to come back to us,” said Brian.
“Reliability is a big thing as well. We use quality materials here and from my experience, those are the kind of things that customers like and you’ll find that those are the things that they appreciate.”
Last April saw Lappin Engineering Ltd win at the RIDBA FAB – Farming and Agricultural Building Awards Non-Member Commended for Markethill Livestock Sales, a project for Hampton Hewitt.
“We won an award over in England…it was a fairly big honour for us,” explained Brian.
“The ceremony was over in York and it was a great clap on the back for the company. We were up against a few big English firms like Shuttle Bottom and Robinsons in Scotland – both companies are large, well established outfits, so it was a great honour.”
In keeping with their commitment to quality Lappin Engineering Limited have been CE Marked since June 2014, using consultancy company BNL Training Limited to help set up and install their management and quality systems and perform the non-destructive testing for welder coding certification.
Lappin Engineering Limited is
Lappin Engineering Ltd
Address: 91 Cornascriebe Road,
Portadown, Co Armagh
Tel: 028 3884 9040
E-mail: admin@
Web: lappinengineering.uk
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 3, March 2016
